"Mom hurry there's a giant spider trying to take a bath with me!"
Never fails. Just when you've created the most refreshing concoction of fresca, wine, and orange juice (don't judge, gotta get my vitamin C somehow), a mom emergency arises and you have to leave it there, slowly watering down on the counter, while you rush off to battle. This battle however, did not sound like something I wanted to be a part of.
Heading into the bathroom I couldn't help but think of how much I hate spiders. Ick, spiders. But you know what I hate even more than spiders, Roaches. And so yes, in awesome Saturday night fashion, there it was. No, not a big leggy spider trying to crawl along the side of the sink next to Stanton's bathtub but a gigantic, brown, long legged, terrifying roach with its creepy antennas reaching out like they wanted to grab me. 16 year old Paige immediately backed away and thought about calling for reinforcements, but seeing Stanton trapped in the corner of his tub a lot closer to the beast of a bug than I was, made me rustle up every ounce of grown-up in me to face this sucker head on.
"Don't worry dude. Mom's got this." Aw hell. No I don't.
This sucker was huge. Wondering when the last time I sprayed was, it dawned on me, oh yeah, I never had. That was one of the ex's jobs, and thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard him grip about having to do it since October-ish so . . . yup, four months. Three months is about the time frame of my home bug spray kit we bought for the house. And given the drama of the break-up last month, I didn't think to ask him to make another round with it before I ended things. Dang it. I should have thought to make a check-list or something with him so I'd know how to run this place better. Oh well, guess now the top of my new check-list will be: Don't be so dependent on a guy. Check.
But nevermind all that. The fact of the matter was that now here I stood, facing the Godzilla of roaches and it has my child trapped in the tub. This was war.
Quick Paige fact though: I don't like squishing things. The whole 'smushed bug on the floor' mess is about the grossest thing to me so I generally like to find other methods to kill things with. Quickly I opened the cabinet to discover the worst - no bug spray. Of course not. Why would I have bug spray? I've never had bugs. Damn it again! So I grabbed the next closest thing that made sense, Scrubbing Bubbles and while throwing up a silent prayer that the "Kills 99.9% of Bacteria" might also include megaRoach, I hollered for Stanton to cover his eyes and I doused the bug in fluffy white foam.
And of course. Nada. If anything, I made the stupid bug slide quicker across the floor at me and for a split second I wondered if they bite. I continued spraying in vain as it ran at me. "Mom it's gonna get you!"
And then before I realized it - I had done it. With my BARE HANDS I instinctively picked up the foam covered bug right before it got to my toe and tossed it into the toilet.
Flush. And gone.
It was like one of those terrible parenting instincts that you can't control, like when you reach out to catch the vomit from your baby's mouth only to realize about 10 seconds later, that was a very terrible idea. (You know you've all done it.) Ick. So gross. But we can't help ourselves. It's in our nature.
Stanton started cheering as I did everything to not cry from knowing I had actually held a freaking roach in my hand. It was completely covered in scrubbing bubbles Paige. Hell, the whole bathroom was now covered in scrubbing bubbles. 99.9% of germs are dead in this room. You'll be okay. I kept repeating that to myself as I slowly washed my hands and finally allowed myself to feel that slight tinge of victory. I totally did it.
Perhaps my weekend was not as exciting as everyone else's, but I had totally beaten Roachzilla and conquered some serious fear issues in the process. And become a 10 minute hero in my son's eyes.
AND, my drink hadn't even watered down yet. Victory! Now, if I could just catch that loose hamster . . .
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