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Sally Forth, 5/21/06

So I got up this morning and stumbled down the hall to my office, which also doubles as the cat’s dining area, and said cat was acting very agitated and weird. It quickly became obvious why: there was a gynormous cockroach, probably two or three inches long, hanging out in her food dish. Hoagie (the cat) will gleefully carry mice around in her mouth and bat them around the floor until they die of some combination of internal hemorrhaging and terror, but she was a little wigged out by the roach, and with good reason, as it was stomach-turning and disgusting and horrifying. The way it scurried happily around the inside of her bowl, looking for tiny food particles to feast on and no doubt leaving little bug poops behind, was deeply disturbing to both of us.

I went downstairs to where my wife was eating her oatmeal, and attempted to convince her with some passive-aggressive whining that she would kill the beast if she really loved me, but she pointed out that (a) she was in the middle of having breakfast and needed to get to work soon, (b) all cat-related chores fell to me, the cat lover, and this fell into that category because the bug was in the cat’s dish, and (c) she had killed the roach she spotted in the basement last night, so I was on my own.

Going back upstairs, I took off my slippers and put on my thickest-soled shoes and a pair of socks, to get as many layers as possible between me and the foul insect. Then I came back into my office, gingerly picked up the bowl (which only sent my six-legged nemesis into a new bout of repulsive scurrying), dumped its contents out on the floor, and then began stomping on the roach repeatedly. Only after I had truly squashed it dead did I notice that I was flailing my hands around and making a high-pitched, girly squealing noise.

I headed downstairs to get a paper towel with which to pick up the corpse. “Sounded like quite a battle,” my wife said, adding, “Don’t bring that thing down here, I’m trying to eat.”

What’s my point? My point is that even I can open a pickle jar. Or at least I can if I use one of those little rubber mat thingies. They save wear and tear on the hands. You should really try one, Ted!