I don’t want to alarm anyone, so just try to stay calm when I tell you this…but I think we’re being watched.

You think it sounds creepy now, but wait until I actually get around to explaining what in the heck it is that I’m whispering about and I assure you that in actuality, it’s really much, much worse. In fact, I probably only have a few minutes before they’re on to what I’m trying to do here, so we must make haste…

You see, the other day I learned that we’re not alone in this apartment, and believe you me, I wish I was talking about ghosts! Although the supernatural may come and go as they please, walking through walls and floors, and probably peeking at you while you’re on the can through an otherwise closed bathroom door, you don’t necessarily have to worry about them actually touching any of your stuff – that’s the beauty of ghost-hood, really. Ask anyone who’s ever had ghosts romping around their home if they’ve ever uttered the phrase, “Don’t use that glass – we found a ghost in the cupboard earlier this afternoon!” Unless they’re playing host to Slimer, I promise you that your answer is going to be a resounding “No.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not the same with cockroaches.

Yes, that’s right – I said cockroaches, bolded and everything to imply further emphasis on the seriousness of the matter. The other day while I was unloading groceries, I came across this humble, old chap just hanging out right smack dab in the middle of my countertop. Now having written my college thesis on the not-so-common giant cockroach (the paper was titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Giant Cockroaches, But Were Kicked Out of the House for Being a Disgusting Idiot Before Having the Chance to Ask… – I got an A-), I can tell you that cockroaches prefer dark and dreary places (examples: garages, underneath refrigerators, the 1957 World’s Faire) as opposed to bright, lit up places, so I was more than a little miffed as to why this dude was just chilling out in the open. Ultimately, I figured that he was either: a) really stupid; or b) a clever decoy to distract me while the rest of his buddies took over the world or something.

Mind you, all of this clever deduction took place over the course of about three seconds before I started screaming like a woman who’s just seen her first spider…

After finally calming myself down from a mass hysteria comparable to that of the second Spice Girls album, I was able to determine that it was going to be necessary for me to capture and interrogate my new guest in hopes of learning the whereabouts of his tribe and what exactly they wanted from my measly, overpriced apartment. Of course, this second part didn’t really happen after I caught the little bugger (no pun intended) under a glass and realized just how God-awful big the thing was – I mean, seriously, I’m not sure how he got in here in the first place unless he brought a set of lock picks or something with him. He (or she, to be fair) was easily the biggest cockroach that I’ve ever seen, this side of that utterly disgusting special on the Discovery channel that provided to me, if anything, that there are some things better not left to HD! I was going to need a baseball bat, or possibly even a Buick to show this bug who the real boss was…and to save you all of those gory details, let’s just say that by the end of the night, I wasn’t the one wrapped up in a paper towel at the bottom of the garbage bag!

So yeah, it felt good to have my home clear of such a beast, but a little voice in the back of my head makes me wonder if I didn’t, in fact, end up doing more harm than good by manhandling their cohort in my fit of rage. I spent the rest of the night awake in bed in a cold sweat, wondering what the rest of the clan would do once they put two-and-two together and realized that Jerry hadn’t checked in yet. Maybe they didn’t really like Jerry anyways because he always cheated at Monday Night Poker and had been known to ogle the other roaches’ wives rather suggestively. Or maybe Jerry was actually the brother of the head cockroach (or President, or Team Leader, or whatever the heck they call him – my paper really didn’t get into that part…) and now I was about to become the tribe’s sworn enemy, unleashing world upon world of cockroach hate and violence against myself, and all because I had to squash first and ask questions later. As you can see, it didn’t take me too long to realize just how screwed I really am…

I pictured myself getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of water, reaching into the refrigerator and having my glass handed out to me by a form to blurry to identify without having my contacts in. Or perhaps I’d simply open the bedroom door to find an army of brown and black blanketing the tile floor of the hall leading to the rest of the apartment, much akin to the army of orcs, trolls and other assorted nastiest assembled by Sauron in the battle for Minas Tirith in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, if you want to put a geeky spin on it. Undoubtedly, one of the roaches would end up firing before the command was given, thus leading the siege on my bedroom with the fell swoop of the hand of black. Believe me, in teetering between these scenarios, along with a third that depicted the bugs rushing my bedroom secret agent style with a fog machine and some piano wire, I really didn’t get much sleep last night.

And honestly, I really don’t know where to go from here. Sure, maybe my single violent attack was just enough to force them to draw back their forces and re-strategize against a new and lesser opponent, but somehow I don’t really believe that. There was just something in that roach’s eyes that said, “We’re not backing down without a battle of epic proportions. You can kill me, but you’ll only be welcoming a world of pain that you couldn’t possibly imagine upon yourself. Viva France!” With any luck, maybe a plea bargain of sorts would be a worthwhile offering to them – I don’t really need two bedrooms here anyways…we can share, right? Or maybe I could pay some sort of additional protection fee to someone or something that could put them cockroaches in their place, so to speak – yeah, that’s the ticket!

On second thought, the Holiday Inn down the street might actually be our safest bet after all…that is, assuming they’re welcoming refugees like us. Oh, I’m sure they’d be happy to open their doors and…

Wait a minute…did you hear that? What’s that sound???

War drums?!

There’s no turning back now. It seems that the war for apartment thirteen-oh-eight has now begun. If I don’t make it out of this alive, tell my mother that I died bludgeoning a giant cockroach with a dining room chair. She’d be proud of that…

Also, if you could maybe write a little tune about my epic tales that people might hum or whistle from time to time when the going gets tough and they, too, find themselves stuck between a rock and a giant cockroach, that would be nice. I think Gordon Lightfoot would be a good choice to sing it for the album…but then again, maybe I’ve got other things that I should be worrying about right now…