Bertha

I have a confession...

Today's post will have nothing to do with fatherhood or children.

I have another confession that I need to rant about...(hey, after all it is my blog).

We have a cockroach that lives in our garage.

Her name is Bertha. (I've dubbed her said name.)

Bertha is a large cockroach.

Sometimes I think she's the leader of a new race of genetically engineered roaches whose aim is no less than to take over the world.


Or at least just annoy the ever livin' dickens out of me.

You see, Bertha only comes out at night.

I think she knows when it's time for me to go into the garage at night to take out the trash, or put something away, etc.

And she just stands there in plain sight, taunting me, as if she's saying, "You can't catch me Dad-E."

And she knows I can't (YET!). She's way smarter than regular bugs.

She runs too fast. Apparently she has been training.


Even if I come after her with a long object (e.g. golf club), she scatters before I have a chance to attack, usually under the car. (And when I look under the car, she's gone.)

I mean, most bugs just sit there waiting for you to smash them. Not Bertha. She has stealth powers.

Once I had her in plain sight on the side of the garage, and she was able to dart in and out of tricycles and baseball tees and the like to evade me, though I came within millimeters of squashing her with a tire.

Now you're probably thinking, why not just put out some bait (or a trap or fumigate the garage or something).

No way. This is a game of intellectual chess (albeit my opponent is a roach).

I will settle for no less than squashing her with (an object projecting outward from) my own hand. Only that will truly be satisfying. I envision that it will look something like this:


It's like Spy vs Spy.

Game on.

Just you wait, Bertha. Your time will come.

Okay, I need to go take my medicine now.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

**ADDENDUM**

I actually wrote this post last week.

Less than 24 hours after writing it, Mom-E, who is usually terrified of spiders the size of your pinky nail, called to inform me that she had killed Bertha with the shoe she was wearing!?! Apparently, a side effect of pregnancy is decreased fear of bugs.

Mom-E did have a slight advantage in that my car was out of the garage.

Apparently drunk from a night of partying with her roach cronies, Bertha was hanging out where my car should have been, leaving her exposed and in plain sight.

Mom-E was apparently able to make quick work of Bertha using her jungle cat-like reflexes. (I must admit to wishing that I had video of pregnant Mom-E running around the garage stomping a roach with her foot.)

Unfortunately, she did not take any pictures of the carnage.

However, let this serve as a warning to you, you genetically engineered roaches, if any of Bertha's kin or followers sets foot in our garage, your fate will be the same as Bertha's!

Let this also serve as a lesson that if you're going to hunt down a female genetically engineered roach, you best hire a female assassin. I bow to the superior sex.

You could also say "never get a man to do a woman's job."

Problem is that according to Raymond, the only reasons Mom-E keeps me around are:
1. Kill bugs
2. Open jars

Honey, you got any jars for me to open?