cohabitation experiment redux, part I: sometimes boys just bug me

so during my extended hiatus, Michael moved in with me. it’s not the first time we’ve lived together. (the fact that we each lived alone for the last two years is an indicator of how our first cohabitation experiment went.) but since tradition says married couples should live together (believe me, i know it crossed both our minds to buck tradition—across the street is practically living together anyway, just without all the annoying parts), Michael heaved his stuff over and up into my place—our place—and there we were.

it was not without its trauma.

it was about three weeks ago when he first began moving boxes into my—our—place. we figured spreading the process out over several days would ease us into living together and we’re all about ease this time around. so there were boxes stacked in various places when i got home that fateful Wednesday night, as well as a sweaty and exhausted Michael. after showing me around the cardboard maze he said he was heading back across the street to bask in the A/C that was still installed there, and to rest up. i was more than happy to sit on my—our—couch with a glass of wine and watch an episode of two of “Gilmore Girls.” A last gasp of solitude.

i got into bed around 10:30 with my book and was feeling quite content when i felt a light tap on my head. a second or two later i thought to feel for/look at the source of that tap. i still don’t know if that was a good or bad idea.

because it was a cockroach.

ON MY PILLOW. IN MY BED. A ROACH.

i gasped and then flew—seriously, my feet did not touch the hardwood floors—about 25 feet into my living room. as i watched the ugly bugger crawl across my Pottery Barn quilt like he owned the place, like he was trying to find the most comfortable spot on my bed, i did a spastic combination of the following things: whimper, curse, cry, shudder and a jerky sort of dance right out of a Charlie Brown cartoon.

let me stop here and inform you that in the almost-two-years that i’ve lived in that apartment i have seen exactly two roaches. both during one week last July, and they appeared because i was not using my drain guard in the shower. once my landlady suggested i start, you know, using the drain guard as the lord intended, there were no other roach sightings. i lived in peace.

so it struck me as more than a funny coincidence that the exact day a boy begins moving his stuff into our—my—apartment, another roach shows up. IN MY BED.

i somehow had the presence of mind to grab my cell phone before vacating the bedroom and i dialed Michael’s phone with a shaky hand. no answer. i could see his lights on across the way so i went flying down the stairs and—sans shoes—across the street and up his stoop to ring his bell. perhaps he’d been in the shower or his phone was on silent or he was practicing picking up his socks and boxers off the floor in preparation for living with me. i rang the hell out of his bell, but no answer.

now i was in a full-on panic as i do not kill roaches. not because i don’t want to, believe you me. because i’m afraid. deathly afraid. i do understand that they’re far smaller than i and they don’t bite or viciously attack or morph into gremlins. but they move fast, they’re disgusting and i just can’t do it. i do not have the mental or emotional strength for it. there. i said it.

and Michael killed the last two for me—i called him on his cell and he came over and squashed them while i squealed and hyperventilated in the other room. it worked out great.

how ironic then that this time, and this roach, for whose presence he was clearly responsible, he was MIA.

i went back up to my apartment and hovered outside my bedroom. i did not see the invader in my bed nor, as i inched warily into the room, anywhere on the floor. i needed my keys and my wallet, which were in my bag, which was next to my bed. believing the roach could have easily jumped off the bed and into my bag, i mean what was to stop him, i reached out my arm and flipped the bag over violently and then sprinted away from it just in case.

all that resulted was a tangled mess of iPod headphones and various notebooks and pens and twelve types of lip balm. no roach.

i grabbed what i needed and left again, this time jetting down to the corner bodega. did i mention i was in ratty gym shorts and a white boy tank (with no bra)? and my glasses? that’s how i look when i go to bed, and, in case you forgot, my bed is where this roach decided to stalk me. by this time, my face was red and blotchy too from my pathetically fearful crying and i must have seemed real mentally stable as i draped myself across the bodega counter and begged for roach traps.

back home i scattered the traps everywhere and had a fleeting memory of my apartment on the upper east side. every once in a while we’d get baby roaches in the kitchen there and regardless of their miniature size, my freak out was just as massive. i scattered roach traps around the place on a regular basis and my roommate once told me that one of her friends had asked, “does this building have a roach problem?” and she said, “no, Megan has a roach problem.”

anyway, once all the traps were placed i was slightly calmer but in no shape to consider getting back in bed. i somehow found the fortitude to strip the sheets and quilts and pillow cases and threw everything into my laundry bag, which would go straight to the laundry on the corner in the morning. then i took two Tylenol PM and parked myself on the couch in the living room. i watched about four episodes of “Gilmore Girls” until i started to doze but even then i didn’t sleep well. every so often it felt like something was crawling on me and my eyes would fly open. i was full-on mental.

needless to say, i did not take this harrowing experience as a positive sign for Cohabitation Experiment Redux. in fact, in my book, it could not have been worse.

come back tomorrow to find out if i recovered—or if Michael and i are back to living alone.

mb