Stephanie Vs. New York

This week I have felt a complete range of emotion: happiness, sadness, pity, empathy, hope, dispair, frustration, joy, love, and fright.

Oh, I could tell you stories of each of the above emotions, but I am going to only tell you about the last one. What I am about to tell you is something I didn't think I would ever have to experience.

Last night I got home from a long night of managing crowds of 30,000 people in the rain, saying goodbye to friends, etc. I am going to The Bahamas today, so I got home last night with the sole task of packing for my trip. I was wandering around the house finding everything I needed when I decided that I wanted a snack. I was standing in the kitchen when I saw him for the first time.

I froze. I stared and told myself that this wasn't happening to me. I started talking to myself. "I live in a nice apartment building!", "I pay way too much rent to have a cockroach!", "How did this critter get in here? The windows have all been shut today", "OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHGETITOUTGETITOUT!"

So what did I do? I called Todd, who I knew was awake at 12:15am since he sent me a text at 12:12am. "What do I do!?? How do I make it go away without touching it?" Todd, of course, had no answers that I wanted which pretty much included a magic wand or another person (him) taking care of this for me. The only advice he could give was "Whatever you do, you have to smash it to pieces to make sure it is dead - this mo fo is going down."

I looked around - no magic wands and Todd lives about 35 blocks away and was not coming over.

I did what any reasonable person would do: sent a text to 4 people with the above photo attached which read: "I am currently freaking out due to the critter on the blinds. Can someone please send my husband over stat!?!?!"

No response.

The staredown continued - the cockroach didn't move anything but his huge whiskers and I named him Fred. (Short for Freddie Krueger, obviously)

I sent a text to my roommate: "OMG Where are you?"

I called - she didn't answer. I left her a voicemail. "OMG WHERE ARE YOU WE HAVE A NEW PET!"

I called Uzi. She suggested windex. I had a few bottles of lysol. I tested out both bottles to see which one had the best range and had the highest likelihood of hitting Fred square in the face without me having to get too close. Uzi requested that I get all of this on video. I declined due to the fact that I was only wearing underwear. (Zing! Visual! You are welcome!)

I continued to stare.

I decided to use a broom as my weapon of choice. With spray bottle in hand, I got close to the blinds and started spraying as much as I could from approximately 3 feet away. Fred spread his wings and flew across the room while I am screaming and waving the broom around me. He landed on a shelf we have in the kitchen. I continued spraying and screaming. Somehow he got in the sink. I ran around into the kitchen area and knew that he was somewhere in the sink - I could hear him trying to climb the sides of the sink and I continued to spray my little heart out. Every time I would see his antennae pop up over the edge of the sink (I was still at least 2 feet away from the sink) I would spray faster until I heard the climbing stop.

It took me about 5 minutes to get the courage to look inside the sink to see if he was really dead. Also, I looked into the sink from the safety of the living room whilst standing on a barstool. And I reached out my hand and took this photo.

And then I did again what any rational person would do with a dead cockroach that they had named Fred:

I put a cup over it and sent a text to my roommate that read: "omg please dismember our new pet when you get home. i trapped it for you."

And I went to bed.

**If you ever feel the need to invite me to do anything involving nature (excluding the beach - unless there are sea snakes or sharks) please refer to this post.