OMG!!! More roaches!!!

*** Disclaimer ***
*** The roaches came with the house. ***
*** I swear! ***
*** It's not my fault!!! ***

So the other night I'm lying in bed happily thinking our roach "issues" have been resolved with the new toilet Tony installed last week and the copious spraying of Raid. Obviously I was dreaming.

Let me back up a bit. Last week when Tony went to install the new toilet on the old side of the house he first had to kill one of those huge red roaches just to get to the toilet. These monsters grow up to 3 inches long and can fly although we mostly just see the 1-2in models. Now my husband is NOT a bug guy. From the beginning (23yrs ago) I have been the designated bug killer. So he goes to pull the old toilet and 3! more roaches come running up out of the hole in the floor. The poor man nearly wet himself. But he was a tropper, grabbed the Raid and dispatched the offending insects without a single high-pitched girlie scream. Apparently they live in the septic tank and come up and out through the wax ring under the toilet which was half gone. I think they ate it!

Fast forward to yesterday. Sarah found a nearly dead roach back by Alex's new room (old side of the house, room still in process of being painted) while I was making lunch. I asked Tony to go flush it because these particular roaches are only stunned by the Raid, not killed by it, so it was only a matter of time before it got up and went on its merry way. Tony balked at my request, I got mad and flushed it myself. So I'm muttering under my breath unkind things about my husband and his lack of bug handling prowess most of yesterday afternoon. But God was a sense of humor.

Fast forward to this morning. 6:20am. I'm quite proud of the fact that I'm up and moving so early. I am so wonderful and I can handle bugs. What was that that God said about pride? So I'm walking for the new side to the old side through the laundry hallway going into the kitchen in my jammies and bare feet and what should I spy. A German cockroach walking across the wall! I thought they were dead! Ok, I can handle this - they're small - only 1 inch. I grab a kleenex, smush it and am wondering what he was doing there. Then I see why. He was visiting his friend, the giant red cockroach from hell who was crouched on the floor not 4 feet from me. I about wet myself. "Honey! Love of my life! Please! Bring the Raid!" because you can't turn your back on them or they disappear and I'm already holding a dead roach in a kleenex in one hand and did I mention I was in my bare feet! So my husband kindly swoops in and saves the day by spraying the heck out of the roach which was already partially stunned from the Raid we sprayed last week(otherwise it would have made a run for me), and then he courageously scoops the mostly dead roach up with a large dustpan and deposits it in the toilet and flushes it and its companion I put in the toilet back to the septic tank where I'm sure he will revive quickly now that he has a chance to rinse the offending poison off himself. Oh, he'll be back!

It was very anti-climatic when not 10 minutes later while gathering the trash from the kitchen I killed one of the German's babies. He was a teeny tiny fellow crawling around on the garbage basket that I had sprayed with Raid 2 weeks ago that's supposed to keep killing for 3 months. Yea, right. So the next generation of little roaches is set to go, the big red roaches are still finding their way in and I'm a much humbler wife.

So the moral of the story is my husband is a great guy and you all can send your donations to Misty's Roach Eradication Fund, The Money-Pit, Tucson, AZ.

My husband has my number

After what seemed like a long week this week with company and painting the boys' rooms and all, I was ready to crash and burn. Normally eating out in a not fast food restaurant really perks me up, especially Mexican food. In Boise we would head over to Chapala's #2 or #5 and I would get the Chimichanga ala Chapala and a Margarita - blended with salt on the rim and purely for medicinal purposes mind you. Tony and I would sit and talk and by the time we got home I was refreshed and very relaxed. Well there is no Chapala's in Tucson but there are lots of health code violations reported on the evening news, most involving a wide variety of species of cockroaches. Oh, and have I mentioned money is slightly tight. So knowing how much I needed to get out Tony suggested going to Costco which is conveniently located within 5 miles of the house and has the cheapest gas in town and since there was no gas left in my van this week after Tony ran Grandpa all over town buying tools to fix stuff around the money-pit, er... I mean our house, it seemed like a reasonable suggestion even if it wasn't a regulation restaurant. Now Tony is not overfond of shopping at Costco especially on a Friday afternoon, but he kindly suggested I eat all the free samples I wanted and that we could wander up and down all the aisles I wanted. Then he even agreed to buying some frozen food items for dinner. The five of us spent a good hour there moseying around, eating samples and buying a few items for dinner. In all we spent half of what a restaurant would have cost and have food for 3 meals, I felt all relaxed and happy upon leaving (even without wine samples) and Tony pumped my gas for me. What a guy! I would have never believed that I could have as good a time at Costco as I would have at Chapala's. Apparently after 23 years (17 of them married) Tony has got me figured out. And he acts like he isn't really paying attention. That's OK, I'm on to him now!