Vermin's Hermits

Around midnight I turned off the television and rolled over in bed. Not but a moment later I heard a scuffling out in the kitchen. I took a quick roll call, Mark, Chandler, Bette, and me, all accounted for and in the bed. So I grabbed the flashlight and went to investigate. Of course the dogs bounded out of bed with me and when we got to the kitchen they both went for the same spot. The dishwasher. I flipped on the lights and I could hear it, a rodent under the dishwasher. I found a rat trap in one of the cabinets, wadded up a piece of bread and stuffed it into the trap's bait holder. I then set the trap under the sink. First thing in the morning I opened the cabinet under the sink and found that the rat had been there. Somehow it had retrieved the bread bait without triggering the trap. So I will repeat the process, but with a piece of goat cheese this time. It's stickier and I think it will cause the trap to snap shut on his filthy neck.

The rat is not the worst vermin that I have confronted in the last few days. Two days ago I opened the cabinet above the sink and was confronted by a Palmetto Bug, which is the Florida name for super giant cockroaches. I freaked out. That is one of the reasons I went to Home Depot the other day. I needed some giant cockroach killer.

Last night I emptied out the cabinets and cleaned all the shelves. I then was able to figure out where the beasts were coming from. Apparently there was a nest behind the cabinet, between the cabinet and the wall. The front door to their nest was a small opening in the seam on the back of the cabinet. So I took the can of roach spray that had a handy nozzle on it so that you could stick it into small holes, and blasted away through the front door of the roach nest. Almost immediately giant roaches started jumping out of the hole, landing in the sink like jilted lovers leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But that is not the most disgusting thing about this incident, not even the one that was crawling up my leg disgusted me as much as the sound. From behind the cabinets was the sound of clattering. It was giant roaches running around, flipping around, and in the throes of death. It sounded like a room full of miniature poodles with long toe nails running around on a tile floor. Eventually the sound of the dying roaches subsided, which meant that now I could give all my attention to our other visitor, the one under the sink. Ah Florida, the Sunshine State.

All roach photos are actual roaches that lived behind my cabinet.