Chester, the cockroach

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.