I used to pride myself on thinking that I didn’t hate anything. Were there things that I strongly disliked? Of course. I could rattle off a somewhat excessive list of what I abhorred, detested and generally despised with little prompting. But I did not hate.
To my na?ve self, hate required such strong negative emotion that I believed I wasn’t capable of it. Surely nothing could be so bad that I would feel compelled to wish its disappearance off the face of the earth. There was a space for everything in the world?good and bad alike. Why can’t we all just get along, hold hands, and join in a rousing rendition of Kum Ba Ya?
I lately found out just how utopian and unrealistic this view was. I, Rachel Sierminski, am most certainly capable of hate. I’ve felt the urge to obliterate something from existence. Words cannot truly describe the extent to which I’ve wanted to make it wish it had never been born. Luckily, my recently discovered evil self is not directed at anything of the two-, four-, or even eight-legged varieties. Most six-legged creatures are even safe from my wrath; it’s only roaches that should fear.
Let me preface with the explanation that I’m from the McHenry, Ill. I tell people I’m from Chicago because a good majority of people who live in northern Illinois, let alone the rest of the United States, look at me with a blank expression when I say the name of my hometown. McHenry is not exactly what you’d call an urban environment. People who’ve grown up in big cities may think it strange, but I’d never seen a live roach before a few weeks ago. Out among the waving cornstalks and the gleaming wheat of the perennially boring Midwest, I just don’t think they exist.
One day, while rinsing oatmeal out of a bowl I was about to put into the dishwasher, I saw an ugly looking bug scurry out of the drain and around the perimeter of the sink. I grabbed a paper towel and squashed it without thinking twice. Having only had run-ins with less exotic kitchen pests such as ants, Indian moths and fruit flies, how was I to know I’d just committed my first cockroach-icide? I didn’t even recall the incident when it was identically repeated that evening.
It was my housemate that popped my bubble of blissful ignorance when she said, “I think we have a roach problem.” Just then, it all came rushing back to me: the balled up paper towels I’d tossed into the garbage can with increasing frequency, the movements along the countertop I’d thought I’d caught out of the corner of my eye. We had roaches.
I was determined to end what I hope was an isolated incident. With astute detective work (alright, we opened a few drawers) we quickly determined that the cabinet under the sink was their nexus. The next logical step was to reach for the can of Raid. While I was at work that night, an entire can was exhausted. The job was done. No more roaches.
I should have learned from past experience that wishful assumptions are just that: wishful. I am the early-riser in our house and so am usually the first to turn on the lights and stir things up in the morning. Unfortunately, this meant that I was also the one to discover that we were co-habitating with mutant insects that would not be stopped by lackluster extermination attempts.
Over the next few weeks we tried various ways of killing off the roaches that remained and preventing them from coming back. Our kitchen is definitely not a pigsty, and despite what our house’s caretaker thinks, we don’t leave dirty dishes in the dishwasher for days at a time. The only plausible option seemed to be a combination of heavier duty insecticides and the ever-posh roach motels. Barring that, we’re still open to suggestions.
Largely thanks to valiant extermination efforts on the part of my roommate’s boyfriend, we’ve managed to take out all but the last few bugs. I’ve also made it my personal mission to strike fear into the hearts of roaches everywhere. Now, when I see one trying to hide, I squash it with such fervor and passion that I almost scare myself. I like to think that if such a thing as roach literary circles existed, they’d be writing epic poetry about the horrid Grendel-like monster, Rachel, who single-handedly wiped out the cockroaches of a certain Georgetown home. Be afraid, little roachies ? be very afraid.
Rachel Sierminski is a junior in the College. She enjoys opera
but thinks that a two-hour time limit should be instituted.
