Cockroachs...

I am a competitive person. This is no secret. I try my best to only express it in moderation, and as I have matured I have definitely seen this happen. Although some friends like to stir up my competitive side, I usually contain it pretty well. But I love good spirited competition. I feel like it just makes everything more interesting, gives life a little more “pizzazz” if you will. Yes, it can easily backfire, especially if you get a group of strong personalities (my friends) together, separate into teams, and play a game like nouns in a bucket, but when it doesn’t get too intense and people have a loving, yet cutthroat spirit, it’s great. Being in China, I haven’t had many competitive moments or people who really bring that side out of me, so it has rested like a sleeping giant.


As I was getting ready for bed the other day I suppose you could say I had an epiphany of sorts. I was brushing my teeth and came face to face with a cockroach. This wasn’t my first encounter, actually it was my fourth. And as I killed it, I said to myself (I find I have been saying a lot of things to myself lately, I guess this is what happens when no one else understands the language you speak), man, I have to keep track of how many of these things I kill. And then, BAM! It hits me. A cockroach kill sheet. Not only does it allow me to express my competitive side by seeing how many I can kill, it gives me something to decorate my barren walls with-granted it’s only a six inch by ten inch paper that is now curled up b/c of the humidity, but it is quite decorative. I proceeded to put four tally marks on the sheet posted it and called it a night.


The next day was a let down…zero roaches (a let down, but also a relief. I like it when bad news is also good news. The same reason I didn’t put any Lions on my fantasy football team. If they do poorly I won’t have them on my fantasy team and if they do well, I am happy because they are the team I cheer for. And if they do poorly, it is someone else’s problem).



But the cockroach count doubled last night. It was a little crazy. I literally started brushing my teeth (again) and said to myself, hmm, no cockroaches tonight. I guess that is ok. Then I walked into my kitchen and there were four. Three were already dead (my roach killers got them-and yes, I am counting them still-they are MY roach killers). The fourth one though, let's just the only reason he was alive was because he didn't fit in the roach killers to get the poison. So I swiftly stomped him, resulting in some messy clean up, but if you aren’t swift they run and you wouldn't believe how fast these things are.


This series of events also gave me a hypothesis for why it is customary to wear slippers in houses and apartments in China. Not to keep the house from getting dirty, but to always have on hand (well really they are on your feet, things aren’t that backwards here) to kill bugs. So, yeah. The count rests at 8