Madness

Friday the 13th: Nightmare on My Street

I wasn’t going to blog about Friday the 13th because I’m not a superstitious sort of woman. Ironically, I almost didn’t blog about anything at all today, because I was confronted early this morning with my greatest phobia on this 13th day of the month. But I soldiered on and grabbed my laptop and ran to the safest place I could think of so that I could bring you this tale of terror and woe.

Fridaythe13thseriesFriday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. I can’t even begin to tell you where it stems from. I’ve never bothered to study it. I always thought the roots of the superstition had to do with that one movie that came out in 1980 that my parents never let me watch. You know the one, right? It’s aptly named Friday the 13th. I wonder how much imagination was employed to conjure that title.

Anyway, there are very few phobias that I harbor. The fear of mold has become a recent one. And I have developed a fear of unwittingly sitting in smeared poo. I think that has to do with the birth of my four children. Apart from that, I don’t have any other phobias; Except for my fear of cockroaches.

I wouldn’t so much call it a “fear” as I would an unholy dread and abhorrence for the little six-legged spawns of Satan. And I mean that. Cockroaches are borne of Satan. What good have they brought the Earth? All they do is spread disease and frighten upstanding citizens of society. When the nuclear fallout occurs in the 40th century, it has been well documented that only the cockroaches will survive. Are these the “meek” that Christ so lovingly spoke of in the Scriptures that are meant inherit the Earth? Cockroaches???

I digress, and that rabbit trail was brought to you courtesy of the fact that I’m deathly afraid right now.

You see, dear MOM Squad Member and Random Reader, I am blogging today from my car. Why my car? Because as I was leaving my shower this morning, preparing for the task of dropping the kids off at school, I saw it. I saw it with my very own eyes, and not from the side view. It was a full frontal visual assault.

The being was about a foot long. It had the wing span of an adult male pterodactyl and the oily sheen of a creature that had spent its life in a sewer or some other such decrepit environment. It crawled slowly, deliberately and tenaciously towards my clothes rack where my beloved summer dresses and hand bags hang and sit. I think I saw it look at me with those, beady, roachy eyes and heard it say “What up, homie!”.

It was a cockroach. In my bedroom. On Friday the 13th.

How had this happened? Dear, sweet Merciful Sky God, how had this happened??? I haven’t seen a cockroach in my room in years! I make sure that Marshall sprays regularly and I always make our house as hostile an environment for them as possible. By what means had it entered? I can only think of one thing: the DEVIL sent it, because he knows that I have always loathed roaches. The disdain I carry for them comes from a particularly terrifying incident during my childhood. No. I don’t want to talk about it, so don’t ask.

So here I sit; in my car with trembling fingers and stained teeth (I couldn’t possibly brush them knowing he’d – and cockroaches are always male – had possibly climbed all over the bristles at some time during the night), in my car, with no underwear and wearing a faded purple boubou. It was lying on the floor next to me so I grabbed it – and that’s exactly how I took my kids to school today. With stank breath and no panties on, wearing old African garb. Visually, I’m sure I am somebody’s nightmare come to life as well.

Do you believe in superstition? Does Friday the 13th concern you? What phobias do you harbor? And more importantly, do you have any suggestions for getting a roach out of my room? Oh God. When is my husband coming home? I can’t sit in this car all day!!!

Happy Friday, y’all.