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Roach part 2 - Erratum: The Price of Paradise

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Erin and I were watching a perfectly legally copied DVD in the living room when Erin heard something in the kitchen. I hit pause and we listened carefully. I didn't hear it until after I saw it: Another giant flying cockroach. He was buzzing around the light above the kitchen sink in a moth-like fashion and then settled down in a crevice between the window and the wall. Erin and I shot each other a glance. No words were necessary, we both knew we had to put this roach to bed for the night.

Erin grabbed the broom and I grabbed a Dansko (Erin once told me that Dansko women's sandals are the ultimate roach flatteners). Erin flushed the critter out onto the counter/sink area and it scurried behind the dish rack. With a couple jabs from the broom, the roach flew out and made a break for the unopened moving boxes. But I was waiting with the shoe and knocked him to the ground with the first hit, and then de-roached him with a second strike while he was flapping on the ground.

So here's where the erratum to my previous post comes in: This sucker was smaller than the previous roach, and this one was definitely bigger than 1.5 inches. So roach #1 had to be at least 2 inches. Inspection of my sandal with a measuring tape, and a quick comparison of the roach to my shoe in the picture reveals that roach #1 was about 2.2 inches long with a 4 inch wing span. That definitely puts it in the Texas size class, albeit at the lower end of the scale. One word: Ew.

Also, quick note to nature: Isn't it enough that roaches can live anywhere, eat anything, slip in and out of tight spaces, survive nuclear Armageddon, and always survive the first hit from a shoe? Was it really necessary to grant them the ability to fly? That's just gratuitous and wrong. What's next, opposable thumbs and lasers?
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Comments

mama mia said…
I'm telling ya! Boric Acid Powder treatment can be safely applied...our big tree roaches in the big H were seldom seen in any position but legs-up/back-on-the-floor. We need to do it again here.
September 29, 2007 at 10:18 AM
erinjohn said…
don't get me wrong, the roaches are disgusting. i do feel fortunate in that we have only seen two in our time here.

mom, i've got boric acid powder. i'm just leery about pumping it all around the house when owen spends so much time playing on the floor. there seems to be no easy way to eliminate household pests that doesn't involve lots of chemicals that are going to give us cancer and brain damage. life's tougher choices, eh?
September 29, 2007 at 12:42 PM
TheOtherMother said…
At least if you all get brain damage, it will be in hawaii.

Next time, I want to see a ruler next to the cockroach. I know that John (like someone else I know) may tend toward exaggeration. Ruler will disprove my theory.

Thinking of you...
September 29, 2007 at 8:41 PM
JohnJohn said…
Like I said, I used scientific means to determine the size of that first cockroach. But whether it was 1.5 inches or 2.2 inches is pretty much a moot point. The thing was huge. Hugely disgusting.

As for acid powder and other pesticides, I think we'll stick to our more organic, team-oriented approach to killing roaches. If we start seeing several a day, then we'll use more drastic measures. But I have to admit I get quite an adrenaline rush from whacking the things the old fashioned way.
September 30, 2007 at 1:31 AM
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