Monday, December 7, 2009

Guh - ross

I've noticed recently that gross things seem to happen to me a lot. I don't go looking for them - they just seem to find me. It's really discouraging and, honestly, rather frightening.

Like the time I was house-sitting, sleeping on my side with my head on my arm, and was awakened by a roach crawling on my arm towards my face. Luckily my reflexes were pretty good - even though I had JUST been dead asleep - and I hit it off of my arm before it could reach my nose. Unfortunately, I smashed it at the same time. On my arm. It was disgusting . . . and it smelled like bug spray. I tried to go back to sleep after washing my arm for 30 minutes but all I could do was lie awake wondering if he was like some sort of soldier roach who had built up an immunity to bug spray by ingesting it bit-by-bit. I imagined a special forces group called the "RAIDers" that sat around roach hotel lobbies, drinking bug-spray cocktails, laughing at RAID commercials and plotting attacks like the one I had been a victim of. I couldn't sleep for weeks.

And the time that a bunch of my friends were hanging out on my porch in college and I took a swig of my Dr. Pepper from my plastic cup, crunched down on the ice, and then, because of the strange texture in my mouth, wondered who dropped the popcorn in my cup. Until I realized that there was no popcorn around and that I had just crunched down on a June bug that was apparently taking a dip in my Dr. Pepper. I brushed my teeth 20 times, went through 5 packs of gum in the next 24 hours, and then switched to 20 oz bottles. With lids.

But the reason I'm writing about this now is that I recently had two HORRIBLE, disGUSTing things happen to me in less than a week's time and I wanted you to suffer along with me.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was standing outside of my house talking when I felt something on my left leg, under my jeans. I instinctively hit the back of my left leg with the top of my right foot - kinda like you would do if you had an itch on your leg and wanted to scratch it without having to bend down. I instantly felt something wet on my leg and quickly pulled my jeans up to investigate. On my left calf, were the carcass and crushed innards of a very large tree roach.

ON . . . MY . . . LEG.

I screamed for someone to get me a tissue but tried to stay calm - if you can scream and "stay calm" at the same time. I wanted to be brave - I really did. I wanted to handle it like a mature, rational adult who would realize that it's just a bug. No biggie. But instead, once I was able to get the guts off of me, I spent the next five minutes doing the Heebie Geebie dance and making strange, unintelligible noises that were either voo doo chants or cuss words in other languages.

So now I'm paranoid . . . my calves have never felt so vulnerable. And, for the first time since 7th grade, I'm considering bringing back the tight-rolled pant. This is a dire situation friends - do you REMEMBER how unflattering tight-rolled pants are???

As I was considering the marketing necessary to convince the public that the tight-roll is the way to go, I found myself at Chili's with my mom. We had decided to get dessert after my church's Christmas concert this weekend and we always love the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie from there. If you haven't tried it, you haven't lived. Anyway, we finished our dessert and chatted at our table for a while and JUST as we were getting our purses to leave, our waitress brought me out another Diet Coke. It was really sweet of her to do that and so I felt obligated to drink at least half of it before leaving - you know, so that she wouldn't feel like her sweet gesture was unappreciated. So I put the straw in my mouth and began the process of sucking down half the soda.

That's when I felt something in my mouth.

And tasted an enchilada.

I began to pull chunks of a foreign corn tortilla out of my mouth. My eyes were wide and my nostrils were a bit flared but, otherwise, I had a FAIRLY controlled expression on my face - like a cross between "I'm okay. I can handle this." and "Holy crap. I need a barf bag. STAT." I couldn't very well do the Heebie Geebie dance or cuss in other languages right there in the middle of the restaurant so, instead, I sucked down some of my mom's drink and chanted "I love Mexican food. I love Mexican food. Even other people's."

And, besides, it could have been a June bug again, right? So I was lucky in comparison . . . right? RIGHT??

So it's been a tough week for me, friends. I have roach remnants that will probably never come off my leg and I may have contracted a strange, incurable disease from a corn-chip-loving Chili's patron.

Don't you feel sorry for me??

4 comments:

Jill said...

I didn't know about the roach on your leg!!!!!!!!!!! GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GAG! GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GAG! GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GAG! GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GAG! GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS! GAG!

Anonymous said...

that was so bad, I NOW HAVE the heebie jeebies.. YUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!! Any type of roach will send me into a panicked frenzy... so I feel your pain!

Emma said...

Guh ross is right!!!! I'm not sure I could have recovered from the Chilis incident....seriously, my stomach is lurching just thinking about it!

Ashley Bookhout said...

Great now I am gonna have a hard time sleeping! I am going to keep thinking something is crawling on me.