Last night I got on a bus with Sarah Silverman, Jonah Hill and Jessica Lange. As we climbed aboard I saw that it was a long bar-bus limo thing and I wondered if I was in a cool Bud Light commercial where I get the night of my life in exchange for selling my soul for a multi-national company whose product tastes like weak piss from an anorexic albino vegan accountant with low-blood sugar.
I wonder if anyone is going to seduce me, I thought, thinking that would be cool, until I looked at Jonah again and he was leering at me with bad intentions. Or, with as bad intentions as Jonah Hill ever has, which usually just means he wants a candy bar.
Sex and candy. That’s what he’s thinking. ALL THE TIME.
As Sarah slipped white gloves over my wrist to prepare for an epic jazz hands battle, I noticed my hands were itchier than should be attributable to simple white, diamond studded leather gloves with neon stitching. I looked down at my hand and it was covered in roaches. This was the point where, horrifically, the dream dissolved into real life.
There was no Sarah Silverman.
No Jessica Lange.
Worse? No Jonah Hill.
But there was a two inch long Palmetto Bug crawling down inside of my wrist. I flung and flailed my arm around like it was on fire and jumped out of bed with a screechy whine. I flung myself at the light switch with reckless abandon.
“What the pphhhffkkk hell?” Karen asked.
“Mother fuck.” I said.
“What?”
“Bug… bug… bug attack… kill murder death I bug smash.” I said because my vocabulary is top notch under sleep awakened stress.
To Karen’s delight, I turned on all lights throughout the house and began moving furniture around. Not rearranging it, just kind of rattling it in an effort the find the little bastard. I picked up light things and looked under them. Heavier things I shook and rattled. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a man pick a full length sofa bed four inches of the floor and then slam it back down but Karen says it was annoying. I think she’s full of the drama again.
Finally after I rattled the bookcase, only spilling a dozen or so tomes, the disgusting beast skittered out and across our bedroom carpet like a bug that was late for an important encore in somebody’s second nightmare.
I picked up the first thing I could grab, a hardback copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” swept it over my head to gain momentum, and swung it down with the force that only hatred and fear can muster…. and missed.
It was much less attractive than this one.
The freakish roach seemed to turn and stop for a moment to laugh and gloat and wink before running into the kitchen. This time I saw where it went. He had wedged himself under the stainless steel garbage container thing. (Is it still called a garbage can when it’s fancy?)
I replaced “Zen” with and old medical book I’d meant to give away ages ago and snuck into the kitchen with the stealth of a ninja. The only sounds were of my wife sighing, rather loudly I thought.
I don’t know why she was sighing.
I pushed the trash away fast with my foot (some would say kicked) and as it fell over, the dirty little demon ran across a barren sea of tile. I brought that book down on him with the force of over a hundred thousand years of human evolutionary hatred that had gone haywire.
The thing exploded in a six-inch Rorschach pattern of insectile death. As I righted the garbage can and began refilling it, I added the book.
Karen sighed, and this time I knew why; she was sighing in pleasure at the resourcefulness of her courageous warrior husband.
It took me two hours to get back to sleep but when I did, Jonah was waiting, and Jonah was… hungry.
Maybe your wife would have been more impressed if you’d chewed the bug to death – what you eat, you don’t fear. It might have also given you the confidence to seduce Sarah Silverman once you returned to your dream.
I could never do that. My lack of bug-eating skill was the only thing that kept me from Fear Factor. My stomach would never oblige.
But… not with Jonah watching.
Thanks GB!
You killed a roach? That’s not easy to do either. I’m glad your wife was impressed. As for the other dream? Yikes.
Have a fabulous day. 🙂
No, those things are hard to kill. Must be why they outlived the dinosaurs and will outlive us all.
Thanks CP!
Great post! Glad you killed the bugger with the medical tome, and not Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
last week I was walking out of the kitchen and almost stepped on a snake in the laundry room. At least I thought it was a snake, until I saw its little legs. It was the biggest dang lizard I’ve ever seen! But while it was still a snake in my mind, I did some fast thinking…should I pick it up? It’s going to slither under the washer and then I’ll have to stand by until it comes out. Does it have rattles on its tail? It sure looks like a snake.
So I pulled on some rubber gloves (OCD in full gear), grabbed the broom and dustpan and swept it up after doing a bit of snake dancing with the thing. Then I tossed it in the ivy across the street. Near the neighbor’s house.
Aren’t you glad you’re not my neighbor?
I was happy I missed the first time as well. I love my collection of hardcovers and “Zen” is one of the best of the best.
We have lizards as well, but ours only get to two or three inches. Where do you live?
I’d love if you were my neighbor because we would conspire against all the other neighbors and totally win!
Thanks Diane!
OMG that IS a horror story. We recently stayed in a roach-infested place and killed heaps of them, and yes, at one point I felt one on my arm while in bed and I screeched and jumped out of bed so high and fast I almost hit the corner where the ceiling meets the wall. They are HORRIBLE! This story did make me laugh though, so that’s good.
Love (and completely understand) the fact you threw away the book.
The thing is, I was afraid people might think our house was all scummy. Our house is sometimes a little clutter-y because I’mawriter but clean as a alcohol-dipped, fire-scorched whistle. The are just everywhere down here. Leave the door open for two seconds and you’re toast!
So anyway, when are you coming to visit?
Thanks Jackie!
Don’t ya just hate it when they wink at you?!
Yes, yes I do. I’m lucky this one didn’t tap dance and tip his hat at me as well, as formidable as he was.
Thanks Karen!
Nicholas Cage would have eaten it!!!
I have a question for you Loon. Nic Cage: good or bad? I can’t figure it out myself.
Thanks Loon!
That is disgusting. All of it. I think it’s crazy when you are dreaming about something and it’s actually (in some form) happening…it’s like you are sleeping but your mind it like wake the hell up this is real. Really real. I would have not been able to sleep without killing that thing either. Just knowing it was in the house…too much to worry about.
Ranks right up there with the falling dream/leg kick wake up. What a terrible way to come to consciousnesses. If I hadn’t found it in the first hour I would have gone to the fire method. It’s just like when you pour water down an ant hole only you use fire and you set your house on fire with it.
Thanks Stephanie!
GAH!!!! I’m glad I’m reading this in the morning because even though sleep is HOURS away at this point, I feel like I may never sleep again after reading it.
We have these huge roaches called wood roaches in my neck of the woods. I am permanently scarred by one flying (YES THEY FLY…sort of) out of a towel I was picking up as I stepped out of the shower one morning about 13 years ago. I didn’t have my contacts on yet, so the entire nightmare is amplified by the fact that my vision was also blurry. I can say that even 13 years later, it is still the rare day that I don’t think of that roach when I am reaching for my towel. *shiver* See…scarred for life by a roach!! (I am no roach warrior.) —Lisa
Our Palmetto Bugs fly as well. They are pretty heavy so the just sort of fling themselves… in the manner of a more athletic chicken, say. But they have weight and if they do hit you, it’s like a nasty bullet. I wear contacts/glasses as well and I totally know what you mean. What your eyes cannot see your imagination amplifies to its most terrible possibility.
Thanks Lisa!