Cockroaches - I just can't cope..

They're beasts in Sydney. Seriously huge mother fuckers. (Profanity is necessary. Trust me.)

It doesn't matter how clean you keep your place - they're everywhere. At night, the sidewalks are littered with them. It's hard not to step on one. They're so common that people know if it's a big one, it's just a visitor, but if it's a small one, it's a infestation. (Big - as in bigger than a June beetle kind of big. Seriously.)

So my current flat has been bug free (unlike my first one that had so many cockroaches and Huntsman spiders I nearly became friends with them). Well, bug free until today.

I know it sounds awful, but it so much worse than that. See, I'm terrified of bugs, but what's worse, I can't kill them. I once called a flat mate home from a bar to deal with a very strange bug (it was scorpionish like - still haven't figured out what it was...). Yes, I did buy her a drink later that evening for rescuing me - okay, maybe a few drinks...

Tonight it happened. One big mother of a cockroach on my kitchen floor. I don't know how it happened (can you hear how panicky it's making me even in the re-telling???) I always do my dishes, take my garbage out religiously but I guess the odds were against me. It had to happen sometime.

The stupid bug even had the audacity to hang out near my shoe with its little antennas swirling around ... (yuck!). It was like it was asking for it. And still I dawdled.... Eventually it got to the point where it really had to be dealt with so I took my shoe and threw it at it. Miraculously it landed right on top and no bug scurried out from underneath. So there I was with a shoe in the middle of my kitchen floor, a presumably squashed bug underneath and me with no one to help clean up the mess.

After a few weak attempts at removing the shoe, I finally managed it. And yes it was squashed. I got some toilet paper so I could flush the remnants down the toilet, but all I could manage was to throw the toilet paper down so it covered the dead bug.

Then I proceeded to say "I can't cope" about a million times and I then spent about thirty minutes nervously pacing around my flat trying to summon up the courage to deal with it.

In the end, I don't know how long it took, but I do know it took an extra wad of toilet paper to 'protect' myself before I cleaned it up and my gag reflex has gotten a full workout. I then had to sterilize the floor and my shoe to prevent any further contamination.

Let's hope it worked.

I hate to say this - but really, I am such a girl when it comes to bugs.

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start seriously looking for a boyfriend....