Gulf Zombies

Like I said, we like it here.  But we are waging a bit of a war, at the moment.   

It all started when Little One’s most recent fever kicked off a couple of nights ago.  She wailed for us from down the hall.

I attended to Her. 

Then I shuffled back to bed, bare feet, half asleep.  I heard this noise:

Skitter.  Sk-itter skitter click click. 

I saw something in the shadows flick by.  I’m half asleep- it is the middle of the ever-loving night people- and so I’m all dull and confused.  I walk closer, to see what it is.  Closer.  I pad my naked, vulnerable toes within inches of this funny noise.  And then.  A long- TOO LONG- silhouette can be made out against the wooden floor.  It moves.  TOWARDS me, holy hell! Right at me!

So I shriek (the heck with sleeping children! I swear the thing is after me!) and do the sissy-girl-freak-out dance; flipping my hands out and kicking my knees up to my chest, aaalll the way back to the surely fortress-like security of the air mattress.  Where I continue hopping around, so that J is bobbling up and down like we’re playing “crack the egg” on a trampoline. 

He’s trying to get me to behave as if I were a half-rational adult or something, all the while the dang SKITTERing is still heading for me!
GAH!  AHHH! UUUug!!!

A ROACH. 

Don’t laugh.  Don’t. DO not.  Don’t even be all “sheesh it’s only a bug, those don’t even bite, I thought it was going to be a rabid python or something, blah blah.” 

This thing was menacing!  It was at LEAST two inches long, fat, and mean.  It was mean, I could tell.  And it was chasing me! 

I like animals.  I like bugs, even. I carefully, almost lovingly removed a beetle from this same house only yesterday, tenderly setting him free in the garden.   I once had a pet tarantula for heaven sakes.  But there are three things that I can find no redeeming value for in this world whatsoever and they are scorpions, mosquitoes, and ROACHES. 

So I pranced at J- “Do something! Ack! It’s COMINGOVERHERE DO something! You- eek!- J.  J! You have to make it go away!”

And so, because he is my knight in shining pajamas, he battled that thing mano-a-mano with his shoe.  Smashed it up, threw it in the trash.  He loves me.  I was hiding under the covers.  I hate for it to be killed, almost as much as I wanted it not to exist.  But in the end, it was dealt with, J obligingly washed his hands with lots of soap, and we got back in bed.  We began drifting off. 

When I heard a noise. 

A shuffling, crunching noise.  A rustling about, if you will.  I heard a familiar footstep and knew what it was.

C: “E! Bad girl! Get out of the kitchen!”

J: “That’s not E.  She’s right here on my side.  It’s X.”  Poor E is always the scapegoat. 

C: “Sorry E.  X! Bad dog! Get OUT of the kitchen and go to bed!”

He was in there sniffing about the trash.  Gross.

He guiltily slunk back to bed.  Everything is settled down. 

We start drifting again. 
And then.

The rustling, Peanuts.  The crunching, moving around sounds.  They came again.  Loud and clear.

I sat up.  Two doggies, innocently curled in the corner.  J, just dropping off.  Crinkle crinkle. 

O.

M.

G.

It was the roach! Back from the dead! Clamoring through the trash heap to get its revenge! 

Can you imagine my reaction? Can you picture it? 
J had to get out of bed, dig that nasty, half-smashed thing out of the garbage, and re-kill it .  Then bag it up and throw it in the garage, just to be safe. 

The garage.  Oh yes. Where I have to go to wash and dry.  Where I was the next night, when I spotted some of Zombie’s relatives holding a war-strategy planning party.  Again, sissy-girl dance. J is called in to save the day.  Again with the shoes.  On my way back from the dryer- it is all the way across the two-car garage from the kitchen door- I try to avert my eyes.  I am both sad/guilty and just plain revolted by the crunched, crumpled little bodies on the floor. 
Ew ew eeeww. 

I haul in the clean clothes, I go out and put another load in.  But on the way back, I notice myself not averting my eyes. 

I beg J to tell me that he cleaned up the dead roach carcasses while I was inside. 

But he didn’t.  He didn’t! Which means one thing only.

That those dead, dead roaches got themselves up and walked away.  Maybe that big sucker was the same one from the last night, who knows. 

Here’s what I do know.  There are zombie. Freaking. Cockroaches.  IN MY HOUSE.  They are plotting against us, and they make me want to hurl. 

I marched myself right to the leasing office THAT DAY and demanded toxic poison all over the place.  But it’s not looking good for us! I mean, nuclear holocausts can’t kill these things, and we’re defending ourselves with flip-flops?!
Today J brought one down, but I knew it was going to go all night-of-the-living-arthropod so I begged him to make sure it was totally out of the house.

He all triumphantly reassured me that he had *flushed it down the toilet*. 

Great.  Ooooh, great. 

You know, Peanuts, those things can swim?!  So now, every time I have to pee, I’m sitting there all nervous, hurrying up, because I just KNOW that any second, an un-dead roach zombie is going to doggie-paddle up and-  

It’s a nightmare, people.  That’s all I’m saying. 

Hopefully the toxic poison people will come soon.  In the meantime, I want you people saying prayers, sending amulets, whatever people do to get rid of nasty, crunchy zombies. 

OH! And have I mentioned the blood-sucking, flying, come-out-at-dark creatures as well?! Zombie roaches. Vampire mosquitoes. 

We’re starting to suspect that we mistakenly moved to a D-list horror movie set. 

We expect Godzilla to walk by any moment. 

Oh but other than that, Peanuts.  Other than all that. 
Florida is super. Super nice.