Couldn't Have Waited Until Tomorrow, Eh?

Okay, I have this incredible 1970s tile throughout most of my house. It looks likes this:

Now, with that tile and tile pattern spread out throughout an entire house, you would think that you wouldn't be able to tell if, say, there were a cockroach ANYWHERE on that title. There are varyingly sized splotches of brown here and there and in that other place, too. There are splotches of brown in the hallway and the dining area, in the bathroom and the kitchen, at the front door and the back door and the OTHER door. This tile is everywhere in this house and so are all those irregular brown splotches.

So, imagine my surprise at the discovery that I have EVERY BROWN SPLOTCH IN THIS HOUSE MEMORIZED.

Yes, every one.

Why, just this evening, as I was walking down the hallway to finish packing for my upcoming trip, I spotted a new spot. "Huh. That's new," I thought. "What is this?" I wondered, as I approached the bedroom door.

AHHHHHHH. A GOD DAMNED MOTHER FUCKER FUCKING COCKROACH.

Yes, cockroaches and scorpions, every desert house has them. There was zero reason to even consider that my house would not also have these, but come on! It couldn't fucking wait until tomorrow, when I would be gone and it could have the whole house ALL TO ITSELF? GAH, roach, what were you thinking?

In true "you can't explain a phobia" fashion, I squawked. This time, however, it was in anger. Instead of my historic call-Eric-to-save-me solution, I stomped back to the kitchen for the broom. "I don't want to deal with this," was the stomping thought. I briefly considered the vacuum cleaner to suck up the roach off the floor, but dismissed the idea after realizing I would have to later dump the roach from the vacuum canister, and argh why do twice what you can do once? The broom it was, along with some vague plan of sweeping the roach from the edge of the door jamb, into the hallway, then no doubt screaming like a banshee as I chased it all over the house with the broom cocked over my shoulder in the perfect kill shot stage position.

When I returned with the broom, however, the roach had graciously moved to the center of the hall, no doubt to taunt me.

Huh.

Okay then.

I deftly rotated that broom 90˚, double gripped the handle, swung the top of the broom from somewhere left of the moon, and brought the glory of some god down upon the monstrosity.

As Kris would say, "He don't feel so good."

I am grateful to Mom for showing me that, yes, you can kill a cockroach with a sufficiently strong enough blow. You can also stomp on them if needed. The things I learn as an adult, I swear.

The hard part was, of course, gathering the roach corpse without shivering all over. I managed, with copious long-distance broom and dustpan holding, and a quick dash, but not so quick that the roach flies back into my face, outside and TOSS into the yard with the shell of the horror husk.

One more day, roach, you could have stayed hidden for one more day. Instead, off you go.