If You Build It, He Will Come

So you've built your new house. Perhaps a new apartment. You move in, you're happy- all is well- but you have forgotten the prophecy of old. If you build it, he will come.

There are few creatures as loathesome, as terrifying, as downright disgusting as...the cockroach.

With its beady eyes and scurrying, quick way of moving, he frightens you. You weren't expecting his presence. All of a sudden, however, he comes out to greet you. Bleary-eyed, weary from lack of sleep, you reach, unwittingly, for a coffee mug. Then you jump back in fear, the mug clattering upon the counter. "Good morning, Chana," his diabolical scurry whispers, "I am here to act as your worst enemy." Perhaps it is an omen.

The problem with creatures like cockroaches is how quickly they move. They scurry. They come out of nowhere, scurry down the counter and beneath a cooking mitt, then disappear. You try to kill them, but by the time you do, they've scampered joyously away.

It used to be that a man would show his prowess through killing dragons for the one he loved. I would be happy with a man who killed cockroaches for me. I have a strange fascination with dead mice (and live mice, for that matter, although preferably not in my house), but cockroaches are not my thing. (Not, God, in case you are listening, that I would like to be suddenly blessed with prolific mice.)

The battle currently stands thus:

Cockroach: 1
Chana: 0

He's out there somewhere. And so, for the rest of the day, I walk in fear, my eyes on alert for the damned little bugger. Oh, to be in Chicago...where the roaches don't come. At least not in my house.