On What People Are Allowed To Fear

This blog has been around since 2010. Due to bad back-up keeping and a failure to renew my domain one year, I lost all of my posts and started fresh in 2016.  BUT, thanks to the Wayback Machine, I was able to recover most of my old content.

Here’s a old blog about cockroaches, which is still a topic of choice for me. It’s even got a quaint Rebecca Black reference.

I’ve moved around a bit in my life. I’ve lived in Florida, South Carolina, and Texas (and over 4 cities in Texas for that matter). For some reason, and I’m being a little facetious here, I think this makes me more of an expert on some things than everyone else.

For instance, hurricanes. I know this is more regular for SETXans as opposed to, say, those Dallasites that rush to grocery stores in fear of the residual rainfall from a Cat1 hurricane. I’ve lived through both Hugo (SC) and Andrew (FL), regardless of being like, 2 at the time. Clearly I’m an expert and can scoff at hurricanes.

How about wind? 5 mph gusts are nothing after you’ve spent one semester in Lubbock and watch wind gusts blow over power lines, fences, and sorority girls alike.

I love being the lone person laughing like an expert at SETXans pouring salt on the ground when the temp drops below 32 degrees, having survived a blizzard once in Pennsylvania.

But there is one thing I fear, irrationally, even coming from a state where this is practically our state bird.

Cockroaches.

You would think that I would have some genetic immunity to large bugs, being a Floridian, and having a mother who once swallowed one on accident (she still hasn’t recovered).

Nope. The other day I carried a toilet paper roll across my apartment, just to watch some beady eyed huge cockroach crawl out of the middle. I carried it. Across. My apartment. Through a toilet paper roll. That’s just as bad as touching it. I’m still shivering with fear.

To protect myself from this fiend, I shut my bedroom door to sleep, and shoved a towel against the crack as a barrier. And my boyfriend just laughed. You know they can crawl through the vents, right?

Thanks, Boyfriend. Not sleeping now. Oh no, just gonna watch that air conditioning vent all night because the only thing that bug wants to do is crawl on my face while I’m sleeping.

I keep thinking about it, and I’m terrified that this cockroach is just crawling around my apartment, sitting on everything I own, just to mess with me. He’s all, climbing on my t-shirts, and cuddling up next to my pillow. Exhausting himself in an effort to touch everything I have in my apartment, or could ever bring into my apartment.

It’s not like I haven’t tried to get over it. I spent hours cleaning my apartment from top to bottom. I have friendly little roach motels stored everywhere. I’ve even named him George, hoping that humanizing the beast will make me less afraid of him. I picture George as a cartoon, nestling sweetly on my finger as we discuss politics, or Rebecca Black’s latest single. You know, things a cockroach would be interested in.

It hasn’t worked yet.

I just heard a distant door shut, and my first thought was, what if that was the cockroach?

Seriously, Christina? Because a cockroach has the skill to shut a door, nevermind the fact that it would probably just crawl underneath and oh sweet lord what if it is crawling toward me. Right. Now.

Ok, it’s not. I checked. But I’m taking this moment and making myself be a little more humble about the things that scare people. Because we’re all a little crazy about something.

Be the first to leave a comment. Don’t be shy.

Join the Discussion

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>