Just Being a Daddy
I could see from her expression when I saw her that something urgent needed my attention.
I could hear it in her voice when she called Papa, Papa!
What is it, Cici? The alarm in her voice caused me to hurry toward the hallway that leads past her bathroom to her bedroom.
Before I got there, she rounded the corner from the hallway and showed me with her hands what she told me with her voice. It is very big, Papa. Her hands showed me that whatever it was, it was about the size of a baseball. Her eyes and her voice told me that whatever it was, it was scaring her.
It is in my bathroom, behind the door, she told me. She placed a hand on my shoulder to hold me back, urging caution. But I had already spotted it. I could see it through the crack on the hinged side of the bathroom door. It was on its back, its legs high in the air. It is dead, I told Cici. I will get it.
Be careful, Papa, she said. Are you sure it is dead? I am sure, I said, bringing a plastic fly swatter with me from the kitchen broom closet. I slipped the fly swatter under the dead body and lifted it carefully, dumping it unceremoniously in the toilet and flushing it down. Cici stood there to make sure it disappeared in the swirl of water.
Ping has the same reaction to these little critters, so I asked Cici, what did you and Mama do when you saw one of these in Guangzhou? Who disposed of the body? The cleaning lady, she told me with a little laugh. But they weren't this big in Guangzhou.
Well, this is Texas, and the tree roaches do grow to be quite sizable.
I could hear it in her voice when she called Papa, Papa!
What is it, Cici? The alarm in her voice caused me to hurry toward the hallway that leads past her bathroom to her bedroom.
Before I got there, she rounded the corner from the hallway and showed me with her hands what she told me with her voice. It is very big, Papa. Her hands showed me that whatever it was, it was about the size of a baseball. Her eyes and her voice told me that whatever it was, it was scaring her.
It is in my bathroom, behind the door, she told me. She placed a hand on my shoulder to hold me back, urging caution. But I had already spotted it. I could see it through the crack on the hinged side of the bathroom door. It was on its back, its legs high in the air. It is dead, I told Cici. I will get it.
Be careful, Papa, she said. Are you sure it is dead? I am sure, I said, bringing a plastic fly swatter with me from the kitchen broom closet. I slipped the fly swatter under the dead body and lifted it carefully, dumping it unceremoniously in the toilet and flushing it down. Cici stood there to make sure it disappeared in the swirl of water.
Ping has the same reaction to these little critters, so I asked Cici, what did you and Mama do when you saw one of these in Guangzhou? Who disposed of the body? The cleaning lady, she told me with a little laugh. But they weren't this big in Guangzhou.
Well, this is Texas, and the tree roaches do grow to be quite sizable.
Thanks Lee, this makes me appreciate very much the fact that we don't have cockroaches around here (well, some people do, but I have never seen one in any of the places I have lived in). I will take the occasional raccoon or deer over a roach of any size.
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Andrew was telling me at lunch today that the tree roaches hide in the grass in his yard. That doesn't surprise me. They are everywhere in Houston. Before I moved to Houston I was being entertained at a mansion in River Oaks. The hostess was horrified to see a tree roach scurry across the floor during cocktail hour. The guests didn't blink an eye.
Maybe it is cold enough where you are to freeze the roaches out. We haven't had a severe winter here since the winter of 82/83. But then until Ike hit last year, we hadn't had a hurricane since 1983, so that next big freeze may be just around the corner.
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I'm with Graig on this one Lee, and if Samantha sees one don't be in the way, she'll run you over.
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Who are these girls? I have to say that the one that Cici described with her hands as being like a baseball couldn't have been more than 1.5 inches long. For girls who will eat almost anything, they sure get queasy when they see a cockroach, whether it is dead or alive. Oh yes, the live ones do cause squealing and just like you describe Samantha, you don't want to be standing in their path to safety.
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Maggie and lil' Alex will tell you that the only good cockroach...is a dead cockroach.
Here at my house, we pratice the recycle and green methods. The cockroaches are fed to the turtle, the crickets are fed to the snake. The other odd critters end up in the toliet. Guess who gets to handle them all?
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