A Funny Little Cockroach Story

Yesterday was a CRAZY day here in Montgomery. We had thunderstorms that flooded parts of the City and caused street closures. Photographs of damaged homes, buildings and cars were circulating across the internet. I had not witnessed anything like that since going through Hurricane Katrina in late August of 2005.

Question: But how do you know when things get really bad?

Answer: The cockroaches come in to stay dry and safe. That is when you realize there is real danger occurring. And one lonely cockroach showed itself to me and my co-workers yesterday in a rather unusual way. (Well, we only saw ONE. Who knows how many OTHERS are out there?!)



I work in an office that performs a lot of bulk mail-outs. We have this paper and envelope machine that has a large, moving belt on it. The machine can fold papers, stamp envelopes and do some other fancy stuff. My co-worker was utilizing the envelope features of the machine just before noon. I was walking down the hall headed to the restroom. Then suddenly I hear her scream loudly!

"What is it?" I run in there to ask. "A roach," she exclaims, "There's a roach in here!" and she is pointing to the right of me! "Where? I don't see it?" I say. I'm fully prepared to take my shoe off and kill the sucker. I'm looking all over the floor for it. But it wasn't on the floor.

Finally I spotted this HUGE cockroach walking along the mail machine belt, right where she was processing envelopes. Actually it was walking all over the papers she had just processed. (Glad I'm not receiving roach droppings in my mail!) Anyway, once I realized that it wasn't on the floor, I became skiddish.

The cockroach looked like it was walking/running on a treadmill because it was literally moving on this mail machine. Well, actually it looked like it was walking in the wrong direction.... (laughing). The whole experience was like watching a bug circus for a few moments. What is it going to do? Will it do a backflip? Too bad it's not wearing a costume! (Yes, these kinds of thoughts really do run through my brain because I'm strange like that).

Another of my co-workers walks into the room hearing the commotion. She was braver than us and moves in real close to the roach. She says, "It looks pregnant...if we kill it, we risk getting baby roaches all over this place!" She looks at it again. "Yes, I think I see some eggs that she is carrying!" Well, great, we all start freaking out.

(Now later on, I was reminded by my smarty pants friend Jess M that roaches lay eggs and the eggs hatch. So that whole million-baby roaches going everywhere just wouldn't happen. BUT... you could get eggs on your shoe if you killed a pregnant roach and those eggs could hatch in and around your shoe. Ewwww!)

Finally, a different co-worker hunts around like a scavenger to find a can of Raid in our office. She finds an old can of it and just sprays the poor thing to death. (Drowned in Raid spray, not an honorable way to die)

We all laughed about it later on in the workday but it was such a crazy couple of minutes! In a way, I feel kind of bad for that roach. She or he (we're still not real sure) was probably just trying to escape from the monsoon rain we were having. What's the harm in wanting to be dry? I can't blame the bug for that.

But still, it was gross to witness that whole wacky ordeal. I hate roaches. Nasty little boogers! Yet wherever I see them go in a time of crisis, I might just have to follow. Don't studies say that those bugs could survive a nuclear war? I believe it! Sometimes there is just no getting rid of them. Well, unless maybe you're Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones from the Men in Black Team, of course. We all know how real that movie is to life. ;-)