Hello. My name is Eugene Marcus MacCrimmon; I’m usually just called “Gene”. My adventures all started one evening when I was in my living room, reading the news. I had just moved into the home and was unaware of all the dangers that lurked within; until that evening.
As I was reading the news, I heard a scuffling noise underneath my recliner; had the room been loud, the noise would have gone unnoticed. But the room was deathly silent, and every little noise sounded a hundred times louder than it really was.
At first, I ignored the sound. But the second time I heard it, I got up to investigate. I got my gun ready (thinking it might be a huge rat..don’t look at me like that! Guns solve everything, right?). I overturned the recliner to find something much smaller than my original idea. In fact, it was perhaps only as small as half of my thumb. This thing was perplexing to me, for indeed I had never seen such a creature face to face. I had only seen it in books. But there it was before me: small and horribly grotesque.
My stomach lurched. It was a cockroach. I backed away slowly, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I didn’t know if a roach would attack on sight, or if they would cower in fear. Two more steps and I would be at the cabinet that held bug repellant. One, two..ouch! My head hit the cabinet. I was afraid to turn around because the roach might attack me; so I felt my way into the cabinet. I first pulled out a bottle of cool whip spray…wait what? Why is that in here? I pulled out everything in that cabinet, but there was no bug spray. One thing I hadn’t noticed was that while I was searching, the roach had left in peace. Maybe. Actually, maybe it went to go get an army of roaches to attack me. I wanted to throw up. Where was that bug repellant? Oh, yes! A thought struck me: Since the cool whip was in the cabinet, maybe I had put the bug spray in the fridge. How odd that would be. But upon further investigation, I found that my hypothesis was incorrect. I gave up all hope of sleeping that night, as I could not imagine sleeping with perhaps an army of riled up roaches that might come any moment to take me down. I was quite panicked, but I couldn’t let my fear get the better of me. I looked in every nook and cranny for that bug spray; every room, every box…everything! And you may be thinking that perhaps I didn’t have any to begin with. But I know I had, because just the evening before I had bought some for a wasp nest. By the time I had got done looking, it was two in the morning. Before I had sat down with the newspaper, it had been seven in the evening. However, I did not intend to go to bed. Or sit down. Because you can never trust a roach, right? But my legs finally got tired of standing, and I allowed myself to sit down on a wooden chair so that I would know they weren’t hiding inside the chair. I had barely sat down two seconds, when out of the fireplace (which was not lit) came an army of roaches. Well, most of them were baby roaches, but there were about ten adult roaches. The most surprising and scary thing about this was the fact that they were bearing on their backs the can of bug spray. I almost screamed. But guys don’t scream, so I didn’t. I had to act quickly, because they were advancing at an alarming rate, especially with such a huge burden to carry. I surveyed my surroundings. Between the chair and the room with the brooms (which I could use as a weapon) was the army of roaches. If I could jump far enough, I could get to the brooms and destroy them. I had to act now. I was running high on adrenaline by the time I jumped; I jumped right over those roaches. I ran with all the power I had in me to the room of brooms. I slammed the door shut. Turned the light on. This time I screamed. The room was filled with roaches, from huge to itty bitty (and no, those itty bitty ones are not cute, trust me. They’re terrifying!). I dodged these little monsters until I got to the rack of brooms. I picked two up. I could duel wield! I can tell you that I was hitting left and right, but those freaky monsters were basically invincible. Something I certainly wasn’t looking forward to. Something that definitely wasn’t in my original tactical battle plan. I was in the heat of battle; too intense to come up with a logical plan that might save my skin. The roaches were running here and there. Some were running towards me! I noticed that several were out. Actually, nope. They were on their backs, but apparently only stunned. Their miserable little legs were kicking every few seconds; I suppose they were trying to tell me “you can’t kill us!!”. I opened the door. It was like opening a floodgate. I took one of those brooms, and knocked the can of bug spray off of the roaches, then used the broom to toss it up in the air. I caught it. Like a boss. I can tell you I was spraying like crazy. But by the time I was through, there was not a bug alive. Oh wait..except one. I’m quite sure that this was the first one I had ever seen. I had a bone to pick with him…or her…whatever, who really cares? It won’t matter in a moment. I sprayed it. But actually, the spray was gone, so I didn’t. I picked up my broom and it was soon dead. Well, not soon. But it died, that’s for sure. The next day, I packed up everything I had and left that house. I haven’t trusted myself to a house, and never will. I’ll roam the streets because it’s better than sleeping in a house of roaches.