Rewind a little bit. My first week here, one of the older girls and I cleaned the schoolroom to prep it for the following week. She warned me, "Last time we cleaned out these drawers, we found so many cockroaches. We actually started naming them like hurricanes." In that moment, I asked myself, "What do I think I'm doing here?" But we only found a handful, half of them already dead. Agatha, Bernard, Candace, Deidre, and Emily.
Since then, other people have spotted one or two, but I've been blessed with limited exposure....which might have something to do with me begging God to keep them away from me.
Last night, however, I made the familiar moonlit journey down the hall to the bathroom. Usually, I just do my thing in the dark, but I had forgotten to brush my teeth earlier so I flicked on a light. Hand halfway to the faucet, I froze. Almost the size of a thumb, resting on the sink, antennae twitching, sat Francois.
To the best of my knowledge, I did not scream. I did, however, thump him into pulp with my plastic toothbrush holder. One hit. Two. Three. I thwacked him with a speed uncannily reminiscent of you, Mom, with your wooden spoon on a deserving behind. Francois was thrashed beyond an inch of his life. In the deafening silence after my berserker reaction, I started hyperventilating, clutching the splintered remains of my unfortunate weapon. It was at least five minutes before I could remove his corpse and anothe five before I convinced myself another roach wouldn't jump out at me if I turned the water on. Eventually, though, I found my way back to my bed, teeth clean, heart at a somewhat normal rhythm.
RIP Francois the Cockroach. I don't really condone mindless killing, but I'm more sorry about my toothbrush holder than one less cockroach to worry about.
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