“Honey” say I, as I re-enter our minuscule office with foot hopping haste, “there is a bug in the kids bathroom I am going to need you to take care of.”
“Really?” He says. “Is it ugly or something?”
“Oh, you’ll see, just get in there now please.”
He heads into the bathroom immediately.
“Wow, that is the biggest bug I have ever seen outside a zoo! What do you think it is?” He exclaims in scientific wonder and interest.
“I am not sure, but if I had to guess, I would say a beetle.” I respond, not caring about its nature as much as its removal.
“Do you think it’s a cockroach?” He asks, unthinkingly bringing up the monster of all uber-procreating pests in reference to this easily two inch long, inch in diameter insect hanging out on my kids bathroom floor. (Nightmare sized insect, as in, do not need a magnifying glass to see distinguishing features while standing above it. Eep!!)
“Nope, it’s a beetle for sure. Not a cockroach.” Memories of my grandmother muttering something about if you see one cockroach, there are thousands more in the walls that you can’t see running around in my head.
“I don’t know honey, looks kind of like a cockroach.” He continues, clueless as to my concern over the damage our house will inevitably suffer when the Men in Black come to do battle with the alien beetles hiding in our bathroom walls.
“Nope. Saw it. Definitely not a cockroach. Definitely a beetle.”
Doesn’t he get it? If it’s a beetle then we don’t have a potential infestation problem, a beetle just randomly wanders into the house through a tear in a screen or something. It’s an outlier, a bit of nature come to visit your home. A cockroach is an indicator of something darker, a deeper problem, an invasion of your space. A cockroach means months of extra cleaning and traps, and worst of all, dealing with more cockroaches. I can tell you now, there is no way in hell I am dealing with an infestation of roaches this size, I will fucking move back in with my parents. This is a nightmare sized beetle.
“Definitely a beetle.” I say, in a tone that simply can no longer be missed as a signal that he should probably not query the nature of the insect again.
“It’s a big sucker isn’t it!” he says again, admiring the engineering of such a large creepy crawlie. “I don’t really want to kill it.”
“You don’t have to kill it, you can put it outside, so long as you put it far, far away outside.” I mention cheerfully, hoping the admiration for the gargantuan example of insect-hood will soon end and the removal process will soon begin. Dead, alive, dissected, I don’t care so long as it is out of my house and I don’t have to touch it to do it!!! Isn’t that one of the reasons I married him? So I can call on him for huge creepy insect removal duty when I don’t want to summon the will to “get over it” and do it myself? Sheesh!!!
“Come here little guy, let’s get you back out where you belong” he says, as he gathers up the beast and carries it out the door to freedom, and most likely death by pigeon.
