A cockroach the size of a baby bird flew in through the window last night. At least I hope it flew in... I mean I hope it wasn’t already inside the house. I’m starting to worry now after having encountered three of these prehistoric monsters in as many days. I suppose it’s hardly fair to call three cockroaches an infestation, but it’s definitely more cockroaches than I feel comfortable with.
So I’ve upped my usual morning sweeping regime to twice daily and I’m washing and drying dishes immediately after using them. (I read that cockroaches thrive around sinks and plumbing and that they especially like it if you leave dishes soaking overnight – ugh! I couldn’t go to sleep last night until I’d done a crazy cleaning session because all I could think about was a bunch of crunchy-shelled freaks having a party in my sink, feasting on my crumbs and spawning new ugly crawly life in my kitchen. YUK!)
Courtney stayed here last night – the water at her place has been turned off for some reason and being without a shower is not much fun in this humidity. She’s a self-confessed ‘bug hater’ and I got the impression was marginally more freaked out by the appearance of the roach than I was. That’s not to say there weren’t girly squeals from both sides though. In fact it was a bit like being at a hen party what with all the shrieking that was going on.
We each armed ourselves with a can of insecticide and chased the huge filth beast around the living room, hunting instincts kicking in just enough to overtake our feelings of disgust. We managed to take it down eventually. It wasn’t quite dead though; just sprawling and kicking on its back. But as neither of us could bring ourselves to get close enough to it do anything approaching a humane act, I had to grab a broom and just sweep it outside so it would die less noticeably.
I had some success with the annoying bureaucracy today as my tutor helped me fill in loads of forms and I finally got myself registered with a doctor. I had less success however with tin openers. Having had the lifelong privilege of the mechanical kind of tin opener (with the handle thing you turn), I have never bothered to mastered the ‘Boy Scout’ kind. So when faced with the challenge of my first tin without a ring pull, it was with some trepidation that I approached this scary looking device. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Baden Powell, this kind of tin opener is basically a small handle with a curved blade attached to it. I had no idea what to do with it so I tried to pierce the top of my tin of tuna by banging the sharp bit onto the tin.
Eventually getting through (and smacking my hand on the tin several times and covering myself with brine in the process) I was then faced with the problem of what to do next. I knew there must be a simple technique to this damn thing, but I just couldn’t fathom what that might be. So basically I sawed my way through half of the lid using the curved blade, which took about twenty minutes, and got covered in sweat and tuna water in the process.
I’m not sure the tuna was worth the effort to be honest...
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