Mr. Exterminator

I sit in bed and wait. And wait. And wait.

I wait for the knock at the door and the person who stands on the other side... the exterminator! The man I love most second to Ben in this city. He is due some time before 10 a.m., and could not get here any sooner. For my sanity and because of the millions of roaches that reside in New York City, I want our apartment sprayed today.

He usually comes once a month to our building to kill the scary, scary bugs that haunt my dreams. He sprays the basement and only the apartments of tenants who sign up on a posted sheet. Only we and the Weinbergs ever sign up for extermination in a building of 80+ apartments. We two families stand alone in the fight against the roaches.

He routinely sprays the basement because it contains the trash, recycling, and laundry rooms. The wide cracks on the ceiling and in the walls seem to beckon six-legged intruders, and the lone window that doesn't close basically screams, "Welcome! There's plenty of room at the inn."

The basement is scary. It's dimly lit, consistently damp, and lined with trash cans. Pretty much a roach haven. A roach mecca.

I only venture down when necessary.

I go to throw away the trash and do the laundry, and do either while wearing a full coverage bodysuit to prevent any skin-to-bug contact. According to Homeland Security, my body is always on level four (orange) when in the basement. Any flash of movement puts me on high alert and ready for engagement.

Once, when doing laundry, a cockroach flipped over in front of the dryer I needed to use. Naturally, it had to move, but there was no way MY foot was going to touch it. So, I waited until a nice man came down and had HIM squish and kick it to another spot. No way did I plan to track roach guts into my apartment from the bottom of my rain boot.

No way.

So, I sit and wait for the exterminator. I sit and I wait. Because, there will be NO roaches in my apartment.