the one and only

today i saw the first cockroach i have ever seen in my whole lifetime. the first in 22 and 1/2 years. it walked triumphantly across my living room and stopped right in the middle of the open floor - basking in the flickering light of the television, which was, once again, tuned into a Bravo Top Chef marathon. i wanted to throw up.

i quickly ran to the kitchen, grabbing a glass but putting it back and frantically search for one glass that i could possibly sacrifice as the main accomplice in my act of pesticide. several glasses came to hand, but finally the smaller glass, which was once proudly a jar filled with Welch's grape jelly, came crashing down on the stationary beast, chopping off the antennae before settling tightly against the wooden floor.

a call to Margaret and her mother came almost instantaneously, with 45 minutes to pass of consoling and suggestions ways to end the frightful episode. nail polish and a cotton ball proved deadly; upon first shoving the toxin into the glass the thing squirmed and shuddered around the rim of the jar, twitched as fumes filtered into its infectious lungs and permeated the vanishing air supply; twitching slower before one last valiant effort before nestling close to its cotton torturer... all of this happening of a gut renching 1/2 hour of monotonous my staring and telepathic wishes for death. Top Chef was on the back-burner.

almost an hour hadgone by, my roommate returned, cleaned the spot on the floor, and vowed to report to our landlord. i took out the trash and scanned the room, rummaged through closets, peered under appliances, kicked and tapped on walls and radiators.

writing about it had to let my nausea out of my body, my anxiety about going to bed, and waking up to a clean sparkling apartment. one little will not ruin my apartment.

not this one. the one and only.

please.