It should go without saying I am not a nature girl. When people ask, "Do you want to go for a walk?" I secretly wonder if their version of walking is actually hiking. I don't go to the beach. I don't camp. Sweating I abhor. Summer is my least favorite month, especially in Japan. I've already established all these facts in my previous posts.
The rainy season in Japan, officially announced here in Tokyo yesterday, is my second least favorite season. Not because it frizzes my hair (I don't have enough, and really, my hair could stand a bit more bounce). I hate the rainy season because I'm convinced it brings out the roaches.
Let's establish this now. I'm not the world's best housekeeper. Organized piles of books, magazines, and papers are stacked throughout my apartment. Some people call this clutter. I prefer to refer to them as stacks of reading material. When I do cook, my garbage goes in a smaller bag which gets tied in a knot, and this goes into a larger bag which I take outside to the trash container. Raw garbage is picked up on Mondays and Fridays in my ward. I take mine out whatever day of the week it is. It can sit outside. I don't care. There's no reason I should have to hold onto this garbage because it's not Friday or Monday.
My organized piles do not include garbage, and this is why I argue there is no reason my apartment should become a haven for roaches. It must be the rain which makes them crawl out from their holes, buried deep in the basement, away from sunshine and happiness. Evil creatures these.
Which is why when I entered my apartment, climbed the stairs to the landing and promptly faced a roach, a mini-roach actually, a baby perhaps, I came to a full stop. This is usually when I call out to my husband--resident bug-killer--but he is not here. Alas. I hate, I mean I really hate the crunching sound bugs make when stepped on or squished under my thickest cookbook. Usually I end up pushing them out the window with a paper towel, not, mind you because I'm some roach activist--they should die, these roaches--but it's the crunching that creeps me out. May I just go on record and state even if I were an animal rights activist I would make an exception for roaches. I need no justification. Roach killing is entirely acceptable.
To avoid the impending sound killing this roach would surely make I first soft-crunched it, pushing down on it with a tissue I found in my purse. Now on it's back, I peer down at it to see if I had successfully terminated its life.
Then it jumped. I mean, this thing sprang up at least 30cm, did a back-flip and landed on its feet. In the floor exercises of Roach Olympics, this thing just won a gold. No, it broke the record for the most elegant and spontaneous flip.
I shrieked. Okay, I screamed and then immediately wondered whether my neighbors would called the police. I grabbed the nearest book--thank God I read--and smashed it down onto the Olympic medalist, "ewww"ing at the, this time, final crunch.
The rainy season in Japan, depending on where you live, lasts anywhere from four to six weeks. To think I may have to battle roaches this entire time does not make me happy and that's a generous understatement. Hot and humid summer will follow this rainy season, and today I don't know which is worse--oozing sweat or war with a bug. Winter cannot come soon enough.
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