EXTERMINATION DAY
Aaron Vanek
“Gotcha, ya, ya lil’ bugger!”
“Another cockroach?” Derek asked without looking at his roommate.
Derek bristled at the fact that he spent $100 buying Roach Motels, Combat, Black Flag, borax, and other infamous “pest removers”, but managed only to stink up the house, deplete the ozone layer, and provide THEM with a place to bury their dead. What did THEY care, THEY could eat a nuclear blast for breakfast and have fallout for lunch. What could some synthesized chemical stew ever hope to do against evolutionary perfection? Nothing worked. They went so far as to take out a loan to hire a specialist. The day after East Side Exterminator’s killing spree, a chestnut brown two-incher with wings hopped out of Derek’s Fruit Loops and kissed him on the nose. Even keeping the apartment immaculate only served to spot them scampering into your underwear a little easier.
The only thing that seemed to have any effect at all was Derek’s roommate, Doug. Doug was the true Master of Cockroach Deathóexcept he employed a slightly more...extreme approach. He’d often use WD-40 to torch a creeper, sometimes forgetting to take it outside and ended up setting fire to the curtains. He even zapped a couple in the microwave. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t explode, they just hop around a lot until you hear the pop. Next thing you know, there’s a chunk of carbon in your Kenmore. His favorite tactic was to rip their legs off before he slowly inserted a pin through their backs and stuck them on a bulletin board to starve to deathóan interesting conversation piece for when the folks drop by.
Doug grunted in joy as he tromped over to the kitchen and pulled out the cutting board. Derek heard a “CHOP!”, and childish giggling.
“Doug, what are you doing?”
“I’m cutting off their heads and putting them on toothpicks so their buddies can see that I mean business!”
Derek grimaced in horror at the ghastly thought.
“Kurtz did it in Heart of Darkness, so why can’t I?” was Doug’s rationale.
Derek retreated to bed, not wanting to deal with it, not looking forward to scrubbing up cockroach heads in the cupboard. It was time to get another roommate. He dozed off hearing Doug challenge, “Come and get me, you little bastards! I’m ready for you!”
Although a film major and sometimes casual drug user, Derek never expected to wake up and find his roommate’s bloody head impaled on a broomstick in the middle of the living room.
