Bonnie Gross

If you do not follow me on Twitter (which I don’t know why you wouldn’t) you might know about a cockroach incident that happened last night. If not, this blog post is to help!

I had just come home from work and shoved my bag down on the bed and promptly switched my corporate casual for some baggy shorts and flip flops. The next thing on my mind was dinner.

I went to my bathroom to wash my hands (because I am a sanitary person and wash my hands before eating). I reach for my towel to dry my hands and a giant cockroach slithers onto my hand. I jerked my hand out of shock and the roach then scurried away and onto the wall.

Now I have dealt with my fair share of bugs. This one time at Alabama my bathtub had a hole where ants, waterbugs and unidentified creepy looking bugs were crawling through. East Edge had to re-caulk my entire bathroom (but that’s a story for a different time).

There is just something about roaches in particular that is terrifying to me. Maybe it is because they are so hard to kill. For the water bugs and ants it was a quick shoe stomp or spray. These crazy things can survive a nuclear attack.

I panicked. I ran out my door and went to the lobby to ask if they had anything to kill roaches. The guy at the front desk was useless. He suggested I hit the bug with something hard. (Thank you kind sir, but I was asking if you had anything hard I could use to hit it) I gave him my usual sarcastic comments and walked towards the elevators.

Emmie had come downstairs to find me pacing back and forth in the elevator bay. She suggested we ask random people to come and kill the cockroach for money or food.

We stood by the elevators begging people to come kill the roach. Most people shrugged us off. Some pretended to not hear us. Most were just as scared. (Most of the people scared to even help were boys…go figure)

Finally a lovely lady named Megan walked into the entrance. She agreed to come upstairs and kill it for nothing. She did not want money or food. She simply exclaimed “never let a man do a women’s job,” then went on to tell us about how she recently killed a roach with a yoga mat.

We arrived at my room and surveyed to find  heavy objects to smack the roach with. Since I was only living here for the summer, I didn’t have many possessions in my room. We decided on a tube of Clorox Wipes. (Convenient because you can clean the guts after the kill)

Megan, this brave soul, stormed into the bathroom with the Clorox Wipes in hand. Without fear she marched into the bathroom and started smacking away. Then she squeals, “I am locking the bathroom door so it can’t escape…oh crap there are two in here.” She goes on to lock the door. She is so brave!

An array of banging and grunting fill the bathroom. “Got one,” she cheers. I stand outside the bathroom door. I kept asking if she was okay and this girl was completely fine. She laughed.

I watched as a cockroach ran under the bathroom door and out my front door into the hallway. I yelled to her that the cockroach had ran into the hall. She slammed the door open and took off down the hallway. A couple seconds later I hear a smacking sound. Megan sprinted after the cockroach that escaped just to go kill it at the end of the hall.

As she goes to hand back my Clorox wipes she catches another cockroach out of the corner of her eye and smacks it down.

It was at this moment that we realized the cockroaches were coming from somewhere in the hall and into my room. I decided that it was best to tell maintenance to come up to the fifth floor and spray or maybe find where they are coming from.

I thanked Megan and gave her a Hoegaarden beer. She kept refusing to take any gifts, but finally I convinced her to atleast take a beer. Megan skipped off, beer in hand.

As I stormed out of my room to the elevators I noticed about 7 roaches.

One roach…okay it happens.

Two roaches…okay they could have a buddy.

SEVEN roaches…there is a problem!

Anyways because maintenance was not able to come till the next day, I bunked in my sisters room. (Thanks again Emmie for letting me stay over) I am still unsure of the status of the fifth floor and my room.

I never got Megan’s last name, but she goes to Penn State, lives in the Pittsburgh area and was staying in the NYU dorms this summer, so if you know her please show her this! She is truly my hero!

Also it gave me hope that there is still good in this world and that people are willing to help!

I did a lot of stuff over the past weeks in NY and I am sorry that I was unable to blog about them recently. I leave NY on Saturday morning and then I have 24 hours to move out, repack, drive to Alabama and move into a new apartment. Oh yeah and I start classes the next day after that. Things are about to get crazy!
Thanks Megan!