My biggest fear about the south (maybe just below the whole family lapsing into southern accents) has been the threat of enormous bugs. Thanks to our overactive condo association in North Carolina, our house was always well sprayed and only had to worry about some ants and an occasional spider. I can handle that.
What I can't handle is the Palmetto bug. Basically, Palmetto is the southern, gentile way of saying "There are cockroaches EVERYWHERE." I shouldn't get too out of hand, because we've come across 5 in the past week. I called our real estate agent for advice and when I told her we had Palmetto bugs, she was worried we'd opened a cabinet and hundreds came spilling out. (God help me if that ever happens.) I called the exterminator and they said it's normal this time of year. The weather is cooling down and it's very dry due to the drought, so the cockroaches are trying to get inside. Yippee.
(I'm not putting up a picture of them, because it gets me too worked up to look at them, even in picture form, so if you want to see one, google it.)
We (I) have been lucky enough that each sighting has been when Brandon was home. Henry did find one on Sunday when Brandon was gone, but it was flipped over on its back and wouldn't move with any lights on, so we kept it stunned in the bathroom until Brandon got back.
But today when I took Henry upstairs for his nap, we found one sitting on the ceiling of the kids' bedroom (our first sighting upstairs- I probably won't sleep tonight). I tried to keep my cool when we saw it. I don't want the kids growing up to be scared of seemingly harmless things, so I try to downplay my complete abhorrence of bugs. (First, it's not that I'm scared of them, I just don't like squishing them. Second, this is also the philosophy I take when I have to touch dogs. I think dogs are dirty. I don't want them to lick me, but I'll let it happen so my kids don't grow up with weird phobias. One exception- butterflies. I will never let one touch me if I have anything to do about it.)
So we went downstairs, got the vacuum, lugged it back upstairs and tried to suck the little devil off the ceiling. Now, if anyone has ever dealt with the American cockroach, you'll know these suckers are fast. I believe Brandon read somewhere that if they were the size of humans (cripes!), they would be able to run at 220 miles/hours. That's fast. So I knocked down the bug instead of getting it on the first shot, then chased it around the room until it ran- of all places- under Henry's bed. Henry's meanwhile was standing on a chair yelling "Suck it up! It's getting away!"
So we proceed to pull Henry's entire bed apart. We pull the mattress off, followed by the box springs. Of course, there are about 50 books under Henry's bed. We carefully lift each book up- and never find the stinking Palmetto bug. We stripped all 4 layers of sheets and mattress pads off his bed and nothing. We moved the bookshelf by his bed and cleaned all the books off it of- still no bug. I have no idea where this thing could have gone.
Finally we had to give up and put everything back together. Henry concluded it must have run out the window (which was closed). I heard they can squeeze through anything, so who knows where it is. I do feel bad putting Henry to bed up there, but he doesn't seem to mind. Hopefully he doesn't wake up with it running across his face.
Oh, and the exterminators are coming on Friday. We've already scheduled our next 4 quarterly appointments.
Luckily, after I drove cars on his train track, I left him alone so I could play with my dolls and look cool in my glasses.
Mama thinks I'm really starting to act like a little girl. Today, I was rooting though all the toys (and throwing them all over the floor) and picked one up, brought it to mama and said clear as day "Fish!"
