Chester, our beloved Cockroach, has in the last seven days.... multiplied. And not just by two.
One evening last week, Alex and I were leaving for our night walk when we noticed more than one dark shape below our doorstep. There were three. Chester had, apparently, invited his two brothers over for a little family get together.
We turned the outside light on.
And all their children. I kid you not; there were too many baby cockroaches to count.
Evidently, Alex had noticed this surplus of cockroaches the night before, but had neglected to tell me. I think he was trying to protect my ability to sleep at night. At night -- when all the cockroaches come out to chill in front of our apartment.
We talked to our landlord about it, and apparently this is a seasonal thing. The cockroaches never come inside (they would have a flight of stairs to make it up anyways), and he would spray for them soon.
All I know is tonight when we returned from our walk (which was a different walk then we had left for the week before), one of Chester’s brothers tried to chase me through the grass. I screamed like a maniac, jumped up the stairs, open the door, slammed it and left Alex outside to fight them off for me.
Not really. But I did scream and jump, just as I had earlier in the night when I saw a cricket. My poor husband.
Chester, I understand your desire to host your family party on our doorstop. You are, after all, a butler, and hosting must be one of your primary joys in life. But your brothers are a little wild, and the kids are over-running the place. The fun needs to stop. Now.
Alex and I have a cockroach. The word alone grosses me out. The bug itself makes me want to scream and jump onto a chair, or a counter, or whatever elevated surface is nearest.
In our last apartment we had one itty bitty cockroach so we set up multiple traps, consisting of coffee grounds placed inside glass jars, with the lid resting partially against a wall and partially on the rim of the jar. We caught nothing, nor did we have any "run-ins" with other resident roaches. I did, however, have a dream that a cockroach the size of a ferret was in our kitchen cupboard, banging (loudly) around the pots and pans.
I'm sorry.
The good thing about our current cockroach is that he lives outside, about 4 feet away from our door. Every once in a while when Alex and I come home at night we see a dark shadow on the ground and then we'll turn on the outside light and he'll scamper back to his safe (dark) hiding place under the house. The funny thing about this is that consistently seeing the cockroach sitting quietly outside our doorstop made us feel a strong enough attachment to...well, name him. We call him Chester.
I'm sorry.
Also, Chester sounds like a name a butler would have, and as cockroaches shiny wing-like things slightly resemble a butler's coat, we feel that Chester (our cockroach) is sort of a butler. (This inspiration may have come from our recent discovery of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series. We just finished watching the A&E version of the first season and enjoyed it very much).
So, there you have it. Consider yourself introduced. If I can bear to write any more of these repulsive creatures, I may have other stories to tell. All I know is, if Chester ever comes inside, his days of buttling will be over.
