MARRIAGE AND THE COCKROACH CAPER, PART 3

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MARRIAGE AND THE COCKROACH CAPER, PART 3

Disclaimer: (or is that disclosure?) Disclaimer: denial, repudiation. Disclosure: exposure, revelation. Maybe it's both I'm meaning. It's this: we don't have cockroaches even though we live in Florida. We are clean people. We are nice people. I have never seen a cockroach in this house. I haven't seen a cockroach—a live, rushing-at-you-cockroach in, oh, years. Also, let the record stand that I don't normally scream and carry on. I'm a fairly calm, even-keeled person, dignified even, at times. Interpretation: I'm not given to screaming fits. Or any kind of fits. I even have a FAKE cockroach in my pantry, belly up, to give an unsuspecting guest a little jolt so we can get a laugh out of it.

Okay. I was sitting at my computer that evening, typing away, creating something (hopefully, good stuff) out of nothing, when I heard it.

Something rustling in the bushes.

I declare, that's what it would've sounded like if I'd been standing in the yard beside my ligustrum.

But I was at my computer.

What was it?

That creepy, scratchy noise?

A few months back, one afternoon after supper, I'd looked out the double window in my study, and there, on our neighbor's roof that was two soaring stories high, was…something.

A bird?

If it was a bird, it was the biggest bird I'd ever seen. Maybe it was a raccoon. Our backyard backs up to a nature preserve, and we occasionally have raccoons. Especially at night. In our garbage cans.

I walked outside and saw that it was indeed bird shaped. I walked back to the front door and opened it. "Milton, there's a great big bird on the house across the street. Come see."

He came outside, then ran back in. "I'm getting my binoculars." In moments, he came out with binoculars in hand, and we walked across the street.

It was a great big eagle, just sitting on the shingles.

"Reckon it's wounded?" I asked.

The neighbor came out.

The three of us stood there, admiring the eagle, both with the binoculars and without them, the eagle's eyes darting to and fro but not a feather moving.

For long minutes, we conversed quietly, still staring upward. Cars drove by and slowed, the people in them looking at the eagle, amazement in their eyes.

Finally, the eagle flew off. No, it wasn't wounded.

So, when I heard that scratching noise in my study that evening, my first thought was, AN EAGLE'S LANDED ON OUR ROOF. I dashed outside.

No eagle.

I came back in and sat down at my computer.

The rustling continued.

All of a sudden, from out of the silk plant ON MY DESK comes a cockroach—you guessed it—as long as my index finger.

I SCREAMED.

I jumped up, ran into the family room. I was shaking like I was riding that shaking ride at Cypress Gardens. (Read my disclaimer as to WHY I was shaking.)

"Milton, a roach just flew at me. It's been walking around IN MY SILK PLANT." YUCK. THE NERVE.

This time, unlike the night I was having a dinner party, he didn't seem to get perturbed at my shrieks. 'Course, maybe I wasn't shrieking as badly as I was when I had been slicing limes at the peninsula IN FRONT OF MY GUESTS, and THAT STUPID COCKROACH CAME FLYING AT ME AND MY FOOD.

The evening of The Cockroach in the Study, we worked rapidly—and with only a few shrieks from me—to get it (interpretation: kill it).

But THIS was why I got so unnerved during my dinner party WHEN THE COCKROACH CAME TOWARD ME. I was thinking, DEAR LORD, DO WE HAVE AN INFESTATION? PLEASE GOD, NO.

Well, the end of "Marriage and the Cockroach Caper Parts 1, 2, and 3" is this: I called my friend the day after the dinner party and apologized for screaming like I did. She comforted me and related a similar experience when FOUR OR FIVE COCKROACHES attacked her. She said I should go around my house and anoint each room with oil and ask Jesus to drive out the cockroaches. (I guess that would be a rendition of James 5:14 {"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord."}.)

Well, at the moment, I didn't have time to do the anointing, though it wasn't a bad idea. Instead, I walked through my house praying--and intending to call the exterminators, though I DO hate poisons.

The next day, something said to look under the kitchen sink.

The Lord.

There was a white cap lying there with words in red letters, "Do Not Remove. Goes to Sewage." Above it was an open pipe. Apparently, the cap had been knocked off by the hose to the sprayer attachment. I replaced the cap.

No more roaches.

So far.

I plead the blood of Jesus.

Disclaimer: (or is that disclosure?) Disclaimer: denial, repudiation. Disclosure: exposure, revelation. Maybe it's both I'm meaning. It's this: we don't have cockroaches even though we live in Florida. We are clean people. We are nice people. I have never seen a cockroach in this house. I haven't seen a cockroach—a live, rushing-at-you-cockroach in, oh, years. Also, let the record stand that I don't normally scream and carry on. I'm a fairly calm, even-keeled person, dignified even, at times. Interpretation: I'm not given to screaming fits. Or any kind of fits. I even have a FAKE cockroach in my pantry, belly up, to give an unsuspecting guest a little jolt so we can get a laugh out of it.

Just one more cockroach story, and then we're off the subject for good. This'll make you laugh…