Our bathtub has been backed up. It tends to do this because I don’t know if you know this about me but hair falls out of my head at an alarming rate. I mean, I’m not concerned. It’s always been this way. If you hang out with me for any period of time, you are guaranteed to find long blonde hair in places YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND. It’s a wonder I have a full head of hair on my head because there seems to be just…so much of it everywhere else.

A few weeks ago, I found more than one strand of it IN THE REFRIGERATOR.

Anyway, as such, the drain has a tendency to clog in the bathroom, despite me being vigilant about it. The point is that when I got in the shower on Saturday morning, the tub started to fill up a few inches and I made a mental note to go buy some Drano or something. Then I got back to the matter at hand: my glorious, relaxing Saturday morning shower. I had just worked out and I had nowhere immediately to go and both of my roommates were gone for the weekend so I just took my sweet time. 

Oh! Wonderful smelling shampoo!

Oh! Soap made of figs!

Oh! Bath water that’s up to my ankles, isn’t that funn–

HOLY SHIT THAT IS A COCKROACH SWIMMING AT MY FEET AEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

You guys?

There was a cockroach swimming with me in the tub.

Alayna later told me it was probably a water bug after I described to her how large it was. (The size of my palm, if you’re wondering. And no, that’s not an exaggeration.)

It was the biggest version of WHATEVER THE HELL IT WAS that I had ever seen.

And hey! You might not know about me losing hair at a super fast rate so you also might not know this but here it is: I am rather weak in spirit when it comes to bugs.

I’m not bothered by small spiders or flies or other small harmless things.

But when I see a cockroach? Or some other kind of centipedey thing that crawls really fast across my kitchen floor?

I jump. Miles into the air. And I do run screaming.

So you can imagine my reaction when I realized A BUG THE SIZE OF TEXAS WAS SWIMMING ON MY BARE FEET.

I screamed. Loud.

And jumped out of the shower. JUUUUUUMPED. It hit me then that no one else was around to help me take care of the problem so I did the most useful thing I could think of:

I just stood naked on the bathmat, staring at the struggling bug in the water and screamed. And screamed.

Then I realized I had to be a freaking grown up and stop yelling at something that was admittedly much smaller than me.

I don’t know what it is about bugs like that that make me freak out. I said above that little harmless bugs don’t bother me. But that’s implying that a cockroach or water bug or WHATEVER *is* harmful to me, as a human. And…it’s not. In fact, it was drowning in my bath water and was at my mercy. So what is all the jumping and screaming about? What exactly do I think that bug is going to do to me?

The answer should be obvious:

It’s going to suddenly multiply, millions of them will race toward me and crawl up my entire body and then they’re going to lay eggs in all my orifices and the babies will eat my brain.

I mean, I think I can speak for all of us when I say this, amirite??

ANYWAY. 

I realized I better freaking get it together so I threw on a towel and tried to calm myself.

I stared at the Loch Ness monster in my bathtub and realized it was no longer moving.

Did it drown? Can it swim?

I forced myself to look closely at it. It looked like a hugeass beetle.

I used to save little beetles from my cousin Tom’s pool. I would pick them up on my finger, feel their little legs on my skin, place them gently out of harm’s way.

YOU’RE JUST A BIG BEETLE, I screamed to no one in particular.

A BIG BEETLE A BIG BEETLE A BIG BEETLE OHMYHELL I CANNOT DO THIS.

I called my friend JK who is the same person I called a few years ago when a cockroach CRAWLED ACROSS MY BED.

Let’s not talk about that story, okay? I’m crying just thinking about it.

CAN A LOCH NESS MONSTER DROWN? I demand to know.

JK: What? 

Me: Oh, sorry. A COCKROACH. A HUGE SPINY BEETLE THING TRIED TO EAT MY BRAINS IN THE SHOWER AND IT’S STILL THERE, IS IT DEAD?

JK: What?

Me: I have a cockroach in my bathtub. It’s not moving.

JK: Dude, those things can’t swim.

Me: THEN WHY WOULD IT TAKE A SHOWER?

JK: That probably wasn’t its original intention.

Me: Ugh, not only is it ugly, it’s freaking stupid.

JK: Dude.

Me: Okay. I just don’t want to be tricked if it isn’t dead but it hasn’t moved in like, a really long time.

JK: Are you just sitting there watching it?

Me: Yes. I don’t know why. It’s seriously the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.

JK: Poke it with something.

Me: YOU POKE IT.

JK: I AM NOT THERE.

Me: Fine. I’ll poke it. But if it’s dead, how do I get it out of there? The idea of even putting it in a paper towel is making me insane.

JK: Put it in a dust pan! Drop it in the toilet. 

Me: YOU ARE A GENIUS.

JK: It’s kind of an obvious thing.

Me: WELL IT WASN’T TO ME.

JK: Okay.

Me: THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME FROM LOCH NESS.

JK: Alright. Lemme know how it goes.

Me: DUDE THIS THING IS SO GROSS, LIKE SO BIG, DO YOU WANT ME TO TAKE A PICTURE OF IT AND SEND IT TO YOU?

JK: I have to go.

So, that’s what happened. The monster was indeed dead. I was sort of grateful he drowned which…I gotta say is terrible. But I didn’t have to kill it. So I felt better. I got him into a dustpan and sent him on his merry way.

And then I set my apartment ablaze with gasoline because there’s no way I can keep living here.

OH, JUST KIDDING.

But it did take me an unusually long time to get in the shower the next morning. I scanned the entire area for suspicious activity. I turned the lights on in the bathroom, ran the water before getting in, I banged some pots and pans.

(WHAT? Can roaches hear? WHY AM I CRAZY? WHAT DID I THINK THAT MIGHT ACCOMPLISH?)

Anyway, I was able to take a shower without screaming so, that’s progress, you know?

I usually spot about three unusually disgusting bugs every summer so one down, two to go.

I’ll keep you posted. God knows, I will.