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Sheeesh, it’s a good thing Lloyd has me as a backup wife.

Good thing indeed.  The problem is that I seem to have a disconnect between days and dates; it’s not the date that’s the problem, it’s the day that it falls on.  The older I get, the worse this tendency gets.  (I can hear my mom now:  “Yep, life’s tough, Methuseleh.")

If you can keep your days and dates straight, then you will indeed be a capital backup wife for Lloyd.  On the other hand, you do have to do occasional Panzer-sized roach dispatching duty, the prospect of which I know does not fill you with glee.

Brief Scene Shortly After C. JoDI Moves To The South:

Me: Jesus, that’s the biggest roach I have ever seen.

Southern Lady: (whose voice in my memory sounds just like Flo from ‘Alice’: Honey, that ain’t a roach, that’s a palmetto bug (pronounced ‘paalmedda buuuug’.

Happy anniversary ‘n all.

You can call them palmetto bugs, Panzers (but only if they’re in their own little tanks), or as people often tell me, waterbugs.  They’re all roaches to me.  And we’ve had a couple of Olympic-training-size champions in our digs recently too...maybe they come out to help celebrate anniversaries…

Two words to strike fear in the heart of anyone who has spent time in Central Texas: Tree Roach.

That’s right, they jump down onto you from trees.  Six inch bugs, I kid you not.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Two words to strike fear in the heart of anyone who has spent time in Central Texas: Tree Roach.

That’s right, they jump down onto you from trees.  Six inch bugs, I kid you not.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Two words to strike fear in the heart of anyone who has spent time in Central Texas: Tree Roach.

That’s right, they jump down onto you from trees.  Six inch bugs, I kid you not.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

OK, I’ll only send this once, not thrice

Uncle, standing on our 16th floor lanai in my parents’ condo in Honolulu:

“What kind of bird is that? It’s got kind of an odd flight pattern.”

Me: “Oh, that’s a cockroach” (pronounced more like kakaroach)

Uncle: “That’s crap. No roach can… oh, shit.”

(exit, rear of stage, closing doors behind us)

Worst Arkansas roach memory:  Seeing flying roach in rental house and making mistake of telling landlord, who came during the day, set off some sort of smoke bomb in crawl space under house, which only drove the herd into a frenzy.  When I came home from work that night and flicked on the light, there were at least a 100 in the house, flying everywhere, pissed at me for telling.  Took more then an hour with a large shoe to bring things under control.

2nd worst:  The one that hid in my shirt in the dorm and bit me after I’d gotten dressed.  My roommates, if asked, would have classified this as the funniest roach story.  I might have hopped around a bit and made a fuss.

I hate roaches.  Where I grew up I lived in an apartment over a greasy truck stop breakfast diner.  Aunt May’s Kitchen.  At 5 or 6 in the morning trucks would pull over for their greasy bacon and eggs.  Meanwhile, the house was infested with spanish roaches.  Not the big old panzer sized Palmetto bugs like I seen in Florida, or hissing cockroaches or texas tree bugs.  Smaller city dwelling critters.  We had the exterminator come so many times.  Sure they’d go away for a while, but they would always come back. 

Then the truck stop got sold and made into a rather nice restaurant.  If you are in Boston the restaurant is 224.  I lived right upstairs for my whole childhood.  They may be a nice restaurant now, but I find it difficult to believe they are roach free. 

In my house now I do not have roaches, but I do get carpenter ants in the summer.  That sucks.