I had nothing much to do at work now... not that there's literally nothing, but those things can wait. I need to utilise my leisure browsing time slot now.
Listening to my iPhone (God bless Apple now that it's working fine again) and playing pool on it isn't gonna kill time fast enough than I'd like it.
So, while I was doing my leisure browsing, I stumbled upon this random blog entry about a girl waking up to a cockroach crawling over her... and as expectedly and rightfully so...
(woohoo just won another pool on my iPhone, okay back to writing.)
she freaked out (what's new? Girl + Cockroach = Panic+Hysteria).
Which led me to reminisce those days when my room... and my house aren't as clean as it is now (it's still dirty but not dirty enough to hold cockroach infestation it seems), there were organised hunts. Yep, you've guessed it right, hunts for them disgusting roaches.
I'm pretty sure I've written something similar to what I'm bout to write somewhere, sometime before this. No matter, nothing's gonna stop me from reproducing the wonderful experience all those times back then.
You see, back then when my two younger brothers were still young, they're easily disturbed by the mere sight of a cockroach. They look at it and responded to it as though the cockroaches are aliens from space, possessing with them awesome technology from other civilisation that gives them the ability to shoot rays and lasers from their antennae that melts your brain.
I took it upon myself to train those little disgrace into proper 'boys' (they're still kids back then, and no guys should freak out like a little girl in front of a cockroach!). I started organising hunts, yep, hunts... like people used to do with bows and arrows few centuries back, and still doing it with rifles and bullets. The only difference is we're hunting a very agile little shitling that can crawl, hide and sometimes fly into your face... armed with only rolled newspapers.
A hunt begins when a cockroach is sighted, usually in our room or in the kitchen. Once sighted, the signal will be given and all officers on duty will scramble to equip themselves with the necessary gears (read: old newspapers.). Naturally, when it all began, it was my younger brother and I doing the hunt while my youngest brother stand guard at the door, being the only exit the little creature has in order to successfully evade execution.
We would form a perimeter where the cockroach was sighted, like a triangle of some sort and would try to disturb the surroundings so we can force it out from places like under the bed (they can hide for a long, long time). Hunts have a 95% success rate, meaning that only in very rare occasion that a cockroach has successfully evaded execution (we didn't have the patience waiting for it to come out, for instance). After my younger brother finally got the hang of things, my youngest brother start going in, replacing me as field agent while I'm on door duty, holding the exit in case they failed.
I must say, once my brothers got used to it all, and with their improved reflexes through active participations in all the hunts, the hunts improved to a 100% success kill rate.
I remember there's this one time, when my dad wasn't around and my mom's the only adult in the house, she'd deal with cockroaches with aerosol spray. That took forever, from chasing it and spraying all the way, until it finally gives up, rolls over and dies. I've learnt from the mistake, that using household pesticides against cockroaches are extremely time consuming and cost ineffective. It was rarely used although they are officially in our arsenal. The only time we'd consider using it would be to smoke the roaches out from where they're hiding.
... but that's just about us growing up in a modern world trying to get rid of ours fears of roaches. The hunts are fun, and my younger brother are still making remarks like "damn... it's been a while since our last roach kill." from time to time.
Have you ever seen a true roach killer in action?
Let me explain then. Cockroaches are extremely agile creatures, and they are fast for their size. For beginners, it's not easy trying to hit them with your rolled up newspapers. You've gotta be fast and precise or you'll find yourself hitting air all the time.
All three of us still couldn't score on first shot. On average we need to try hitting that thing for about three times.
... but a master doesn't. A master doesn't even have the need to use a weapon apart from his hands. My dad is one of them. He can catch a roach with one swift swipe. The method of execution is very simple yet extremely effective and clean. Once caught, he would throw the cockroach to the wall or the floor with force. The cockroach would die from the impact, while retaining all those disgusting fluid within his body as the impact from the throw wouldn't have caused a structural breach on the roach.
With all that said, I kinda secretly wish that sometimes I get to kill roaches like I use to, but I appreciate the fact that my house is still relatively clean in general.
I still wouldn't touch a cockroach with my hand, but I'm damn good at aiming the roaches with my foot. 90% accuracy.
