Roach

(Not the Kind You Smoked In Your Youth)

What do you suppose he thought his day would hold, when he woke up this morning, that roach you just snatched out of the bathtub with a tissue, and flushed down the toilet? Probably toilet swimming wasn’t uppermost on his list of expectations and goals. Though maybe I’m projecting, since I don’t really know how tiny roach minds work. But the evidence supports me: he tried to swim out, and it wasn’t a leisurely backstroke.

I say “you” in an effort to make my observation universal, when I maybe should say that roach “I” just snatched … You probably don’t have roaches, do you? But that’s a bit beside the point – especially for my roach – but also for me, and you too. The point is, he took the swim, not by choice, and now he’s on a watery journey to somewhere that neither he nor I (and probably, nor you) had foreseen just moments ago, his destination a mystery to all but wastewater engineers. And not even imagined as he drug his sorry roach carcass out of roach bed this Monday morning, to begin a new roach week, with no rain in the forecast and temps headed back into the high 90s. (But the weather prospects are a little beside the point too; on some topics we’ll do almost anything to divert.)

I paused for a moment before I snatched, almost seeing beauty in the color of his auburn-hued body against the white porcelain. If I weren’t weighed down by a lifetime of roach disgust, that might have been enough for me to spare him. I no longer smash spiders with a slap of my rubber flip-flop, which took years of conscious self restraint, reminding myself that they do good things, like eating mites. (Unless they’re big spiders; in which case they still get smashed; I confess my ongoing sizeist prejudice when it comes to spiders).

But in the roach’s case, beauty wasn’t enough. Neither was innocence, since I don’t suppose he had any nefarious intent in taking his bathtub stroll – probably just in search of whatever it is roaches have for breakfast (I know, we don’t even want to think about it!). And if he’d taken another direction: maybe stayed in the wall – which I’m pretty sure is a thriving roach metropolis, even in the most “roach-free” houses – instead of coming out into the light. But how alluring the light is, even though roach parents going back generations may have been warning their roach-lets to resist it’s glittery temptation. What do THEY know about things, after all? They’re only roach-parents.

If you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering why I’ve spent 400 plus words musing about what should really have been an incident over in a moment, hidden from the world because of roach infested shame, and certainly not written about at length – and posted on Substack and Facebook (of course I will!). Though since you’re my friend, and reading my post, you are clearly clever enough to have begun to see yourself, and your life predicament, in my roach and his, as I did. (I’ll now begin to call him “our” roach, since we’re shifting back into the universal.)

I felt such power as I scooped him up. He didn’t even try to run at first, perhaps stunned at what was coming down upon him out of the blue. Yes, my bathroom is painted blue, so the metaphor does apply. Even as I scooped, I glanced over my shoulder to see what might be coming down on me out of that wider blue. Glancing, I almost missed him, in fact, since his stun passed quickly and he did begin to run. The advice of the only human known to have been hit by falling space debris came to mind: “Look up. If you see it coming, RUN!”

BUT WHICH DIRECTION?!

Unfortunately for him, our roach didn’t get it right. And since I’d already had my morning coffee (two cups, in fact) and was pretty sharp, there may have been no right way for him to run, today. And now there won’t be any way tomorrow.

I’m not implying that our roach is some kind of latter-day archy – nor we, mehitabels, never mind our slightly alley-cat younger years –  but I almost wish I’d given him time to share some bit of roach wisdom, based on the momentous events he faced (momentous for him) this morning. As I hear the news of earthquakes and floods, and, even in our supposedly civilized country, mass shootings, I find myself feeling not unlike I imagine he might have felt when he sensed the tissue hovering. But I didn’t give him time, not that he’d have been eager to help me out with his wisdom, anyway, considering. So I have to imagine. All I’ve come up with is something like:

“Look up. If you see it coming – OH, SHIT!”