HOW NOT TO KILL A COCKROACH!
(Wednesday 4th November 2009)
I am in pain!
I'm sat at home on a papyrus base settee in our sitting cum dining room, with my right hand resting and elevated above my heart, on its arm.
My hand is throbbing!
It needed the wisdom of a surgeon to manipulate (struggle) my 5th metacarple back into the knuckle socket out of which it was so brutally dislocated and broken!
I would like to tell you that it was worth it. I would like to say that I was being heroic and had warded off some dangerous person or animal, or even that a major event required my sacrificial giving ending up in my being injured and 'wowed' at by the masses for my bravery.
Humbly I must confess that none of these highly esteemed feats were the case. To be utterly truthful, the reason for my painful injury couldn't be further from the above.
The truth is, it was caused by a cockroach! Yes, a cockroach. A creature that is harmless.
'A cockroach,' I hear you say?
'Ahah, that's right, a cockroach.'
'Wow, how big was it that it caused such a painful injury to your writing hand?' 'Well, it was not that big. Maybe 3 inches at most, if you include its feelers and hind legs.' I quietly reply.
'Oh. Well tell me what actually happened?' you ask.
Well before I do, let me say that these creatures are mighty fast at scuttling around. They have such a hard shell to protect their body, such that scientists have experimented with what they thought were dead cockroaches only to find that 7 days later they were still alive!
We have never before had a cockroach in our sitting room. That is until Tuesday night this past week at 10.30pm.
I was just coming to the end of playing spider solitaire on my lap-top when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a creature quickly dart past the settee and hide behind the single seater close by. I assumed it was a large gheko which we love to watch walking in the most impossible ways in order to catch a fly or mosquito...but moments later I realised the worst, for approaching me across the blue rug was this massive cockroach...massive compared to an ant!
My mind went into 'destroy' mode!
But how could I with a lap-top on my lap and the 'Doom' spray bottle out of reach. ('Doom' supposedly kills all unwanted insects and displays a dead cockroach lying on its back on the side of the can.) I decided upon seeing the unwanted creature approach that I was left with only one decision...'crush it'. And because of its massive size and its engendering such 'fear' into me I chose to do something that insect lovers would not be able to comprehend, and for which I was about to learn yet another of life's lessons.
The creature stopped right in front of me twitching. Holding the lap-top with my left hand I twisted my body to gain greatest advantage to destroy the encrustation! With a massive wild swing of my clenched right fist, I came thundering down upon the innocent creature...and missed it as it fled...but not the tiled floor! With a crunch on impact and a crack of bone, I felt my knuckle buckle and 5th metacarple break!
My wife had retired to bed half an hour earlier and realised that my moanings and groanings were not normal so came to investigate. The injured hand lay throbbing and increasing in size under a cold water flow in the nearby bathroom. She was comforting and understandingand wanted to help.
A good 10-15 minutes later, with ice pack surrounding the ever swelling hand, we went in search of the cockroach... this time armed with the 'Doom' spray! As we upturned the settee it darted away, but not to safety! We had it trapped in a corner of the room by the outside door!
10 seconds of spray 'doomed' the little creature and the fight was over. And sure enough, there it lay upside down on the floor, just like the picture on the side of the can.

But why hadn't I used a cheaper form of death knell? The heel of my right foot?
Or better and cheaper still, open the door to our veranda and let it escape?
The following day was spent forking out loads of dosh and receiving further painful reconstruction of the injured hand.

Let's hope the 'Doom' really has worked and that it doesn't come alive next Tuesday evening, 7 days from the event!