Summer in Sydney

I daresay, that no one who knows me would describe me as “squeamish”. After all, I take recreational photographs of road kill and have been known to bring select specimens home for closer inspection. Sure, I may squeal upon finding a scorpion in my bathtub, but then I just scoop it up and take it outside. I am not bothered by snakes, rats, bats, spiders, dung beetles, mice, centipedes, or Kylie Minogue, but there is one creature on this earth whose mere existence is capable of catapulting me into an apoplectic spasm of heeby-jeebies: The (unfortunately very) Common Cockroach.

I have already blathered on at length about the origins of my terror, but that has done little to assuage my disgust at each and every sighting. In Sydney, cockroaches are not necessarily an indicator of poor hygiene, but are rather part and parcel of the seasonal fauna, becoming highly visible (and quite large) during the steamy months of summer. However, it is painfully evident when the groundskeepers have recently sprayed around the Blackburn Building. For some reason, they little fuckers like to crawl into my lab to die. I arrived Friday morning to find 48 legs and 16 antennae wriggling at me from all corners of the laboratory in the final stages of what I hope was a very painful death.

But there, at the end of the room, was one defiant monster, staring at me, challenging me. I took a timid step forward. He charged then feinted to the right, paused, checked the distance between my shoe and the centrifuge and waited. I contemplated seeking reinforcements, but there wouldn’t be time. He would surely escape. I took another step. He waited, gauging my resolve, measuring my alacrity, his beady little eyes twitching on their stalks (I have no idea if that is anatomically accurate, but that’s how it looked on my cerebral screen.)


JEESUS FUCK!

Sorry. We interrupt this narrative for a breaking story – I am writing on the edge of my seat as I relive the horror and anxiety of my moment of confrontation – when all of a sudden I am attacked by some sort of flying insect. It flew into my face, directly between my eyes! In America, I might call this a June Bug…here, I call it a cat snack. It has very sticky feet which tickle as it crawls across my fingers…

OK, where was I…crap, now the story has lost all of its tension. At any rate, I steeled myself and tried to kill the roach, but it just laughed at my feeble effort and scurried away. Sometimes, my terrible memory serves me well, and in this case, I soon forgot that the little bastard was lurking in my lab and went about the day’s experiments, all the while avoiding looking at the 8 shiny brown carcasses strewn about the floor.

I don’t know why this piece of masking tape has been sitting looped about on the glassware shelf for the last few weeks. I am pretty sure I didn’t put it there, but I am equally responsible for not having removed it, and I still have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, if it had not been there, it would not have trapped the giant cockroach, but then neither would I have had a mild stroke as my hand brushed it upon reaching for a beaker.

There was no way I was going to engage in battle with a monster at eye level. Fortunately, the cavalry was close at hand, and Joe came and squashed the wretched beast between two paper towels. He also cleared the battle field of the victims of chemical warfare, while I retired to my desk for a soothing cup of tea to help calm my nerves.

And as soon as Markus killed the little fucker that was sitting UNDER MY CHAIR, I called Kevin and asked him to chill a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for me. Today, I was going to need a drink.