Last Friday I discovered something in my room that no one wants to find: a cockroach.† Now, for those of you that don’t know me or have never seen my room, let me tell you that I am obsessed with cleanliness and neatness.† I will even procrastinate doing my I.S. with cleaning my room, and procrastinating I.S. is one of my talents.† So, needless to say, I was shocked that I could fall victim to such a disgusting creature.† I saw the first one at about 11 a.m. after getting out of the shower.† When I failed to catch it as it hid behind my desk. I got dressed and made my bed thinking that Security or someone would come over immediately to nip this problem in the bud.

I called Security, who told me I had to call Building Services.† When I called Building Services, they told me that the exterminator only comes Wednesdays.† Wednesday?† But it was Friday.† If there are roaches in my room, I can guarantee they’re in someone else’s room.† I live in the basement of a very old dorm, Armington, and the nice weather we had last week probably helped create their ideal habitat. Wouldn’t Wooster rather kill the cockroaches now than five days from now?† If you see one cockroach, there are definitely more, and if these are female cockroaches in my room, they lay about one egg capsule a week that can have as many as 16 baby roaches ready to hatch in six weeks.† Gross.† But hey, I’d only seen one roach so far so maybe it just crawled under my door recently and hasn’t been living in my room.

But later a second cockroach peeped out from underneath my futon.† I was determined to catch this one.† I grabed an empty Vitamin Water bottle and tried to get the roach to go inside of it.† Did you know cockroaches could jump?† Neither did I until then.† After much profanity, screaming and even a few tears, the roach jumped into a case of Vitamin Water on the floor, so I dragged the case outside my room where it jumped onto the floor.† I finally pounced on it with the bottle.† Success! After one more self-induced pep-talk I managed to slide some cardboard under the bottle, flip it over and put the cap on.† I had caught a cockroach.

However, the excitement was short-lived as I remembered the other cockroach hiding behind my desk.† Even with the comforting words of my Resident Director, I still knew I would be spending the next five nights in sleeplessness with the lights on and contacts in. If I did ever manage to fall asleep I would be dreaming of cockroaches climbing over me and laying eggs in my clothes.

I do realize that Wooster does a lot for us, and I am grateful that they provide an extermination service.† However, five days of knowing that there are creepy-crawlies on my floor lessens my patience for the fact that the exterminator only comes once a week.†† Let’s hope that if there are any more roaches in my room, they check into the spiffy roach motels I bought for them, but don’t check out.