Pest Control

originally written 5/20/06

Last night I bagged my second Volkswagen-sized cockroach of the season in my bedroom. It would be more accurate to say I “cupped” it, scooping it up in a big 32-ounce plastic cup. Then I filled the thing a third full of water, put it in the bathroom and went to bed.

I did this because this is how I used to kill scorpions. When I lived in Georgia, about every nine weeks (average) a tiny scorpion would get into my apartment and hang out. I didn’t even know Georgia had scorpions. Damn immigrants.

Unlike other bugs*, these scorpions did not care to hide under things. I arrived home from work, opened the door, and the scorpion had apparently done the complex geometry to discern the most open spot in the room. Even when I came in they never tried to hide, like they were too damn cool to scurry. They were pleasantly easy to catch that way.

I tried a variety of indirect scorpion-killing methods such as crushing and asphyxiation. Scorpions are tough bastards though. They don’t fall for the classics. Then I tried drowning.

Remember that hoary scorpion and toad story, where the scorpion cons the toad into carrying him across the river and promises he won’t sting him because that would doom them both? Then he does it anyway because that’s his nature? It’s true. Not the nature part. That’s a stupid moral. No, the truth is scorpions can’t swim.

Every scorpion I dropped in water sank like rocks. A few hours later, I’d toss the drowned corpse into the woods outside my apartment. That’s the circle of life.

Cockroaches, on the other hand, are swimmy little dudes. The one last night started freestyling as soon as he went in the drink, and kept it up for several minutes as I watched him. Then I went to bed. Today I got up and checked on him –- still going. There was tiny roach poop in the bottom of the cup, and his antennae were droopy, but still kicking like he’s on a Tony Little Gazelle.

Those must have been death throes, because a little while later he was in his personal Davy Jones’s Locker. According to scientific measurement, he swam for 13 hours. Then I flushed him down the toilet.

I would have thrown him out into the woods, but I want cockroaches out of the damn circle of life.

*The entomologically inclined among you will note that scorpions aren’t bugs. Keen observers will note I don’t care.