cohabitation experiment redux, part II: the end of one life, the beginning of another...

so. i had a horrible night’s sleep with the imaginary roaches taunting me and my body scrunched on the scratchy love seat. and as i came very close to losing my sanity over a two-inch bug, my MIA fiancé had been a few blocks away having a beer with a friend of his who’d called him to come out for quiz night at the bar. he hadn’t answered any of my frantic calls to his cell because it was not with him—he was wearing pocketless shorts and left the phone at home.

(when i learned of this i did not respond in a particularly graceful or becoming way but since this is my blog i will skip over the gory details.)

the subsequent days were nerve-wracking for me. my routine upon arriving home after work was as follows:

1. first, push open the door and flip on the light whilst whipping my head around wildly to spot any scampering critters
2. then, poke my head around the corner to peer into the kitchen for similar critter-sightings
3. and then, rip open my shower curtain in an attempt to startle-to-death any critters languidly lounging in my tub
4. and finally, enter the bedroom and scan the carpet, walls and—of course—top of bed for Public Enemy Number One

Michael would not admit that the roach came from one of his boxes. “i never had any roaches in my apartment,” he kept saying. and i kept reminding him that he got the boxes from the wine store and they probably had roaches. and on top of this roach-related bickering, there was the adjusting-to-living-together-again stuff.

which was almost worse than the roach.

for example, i was visiting my Gram that sunday and when i got home i discovered that Michael had unloaded the contents of his fridge onto the top shelf of my (previously very organized) fridge. the rational part of my brain knew that it was only temporary, that it was very hot outside and he just needed to get his milk and mustard and eggs and wasabi and whatnot into cold storage ASAP.

but i am, in no particular order, an only child, a control freak, neurotic and a brat. so, before my rational side could clamp its hand over the mouth of my irrational side, i rolled my eyes and muttered an annoyed jesus christ within earshot of my new roomie and, yeah... that pretty much set the tone for the next few days.

there were highly dramatic moments, gnashing of the teeth, slamming of cabinet doors and many heaved sighs that so very clearly translated into my god i can’t stand you, you ridiculous person!

then finally, last wednesday, after a few previous aborted attempts, we were able to sit down and hash out our current crop of issues with cool, clear heads. in addition to the fact that we are both very sensitive creatures who in their lamest of moments can easily slip into histrionics, we were both obviously very used to living alone. there’s friction anytime two people combine lives (and kitchen supplies and DVD collections and closet space and all kinds of crappy IKEA furniture); if they’re combining very independent, quite content lives with which they’ve both been quite satisfied, well—if there aren’t resulting fireworks and slammed cabinets, someone ain’t being honest.

so we had a nice talk last wednesday. we sat on the love seat and spoke like normal people and came to an understanding and hugged it out. just as we were winding the conversation down, i spotted what i’d been waiting to see for two weeks—a freakin’ cockroach scuttling across the living room floor.

i gasped, i shrieked, i leapt up onto my feet on the couch and was looking for a non-destructive way to attach myself to the ceiling fan so the roach could not in any way attack me when Michael stood up, took his Nike flip-flop and pounded the crap out of the sucker. one fell swoop the bastard was dead.

once my shuddering stopped and i felt safe enough to sit back down on the couch (but with my feet tucked securely beneath me) i started railing on how and why i was experiencing a roach infestation, i didn’t understand, i’d been using the damn drain guard for over a year...

and then it dawned on me.

“that was the same roach!” i exclaimed to Michael. “i never did catch him that night, he’s probably been hiding all this time!”

Michael hesitated—i know he thought i was off my nut, but considering we’d just made up after a rather trying two weeks, he made the smart decision to placate me.

“you’re probably right,” he said. “we finally got him.”

how's that for full-circle? and since the death of the roach who almost destroyed our marriage before we were even married (or at least i hope that was him) our life has been much calmer*, happier—and completely bug-free.

mb

*of course, i still get freaked out getting into bed at night to read my book. it’s post-traumatic stress syndrome. i try to be brave but more often than not i’ll pull a pillow over my head, which makes reading quite a challenge but at least i’m assured that if another roach decides to dive bomb my bed he won’t land in my hair. and i also have a strong, courageous man nearby (forever!) to administer death by flip-flop. cohabitation is all good.

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