Holy shit Martha! ¡Estas cucarachas pueden volar!

Ξ July 3rd, 2005 | → 21 Comments | ∇ -My Favorites, Costa Rica, Humor, Maria Luisa, Whatever |

So I sorta fancy that I know a bit about my adopted country.

Arrogant maybe, but not totally unfounded as I do a lot of writing and teaching here. I run a forum on Costa Rica In fact, I just completed a section on Costa Rica’s creepy crawlies for a huge new web site on Costa Rica… so I THOUGHT I had a grasp on this bug thing. Until tonight.

Charlie starts the stalking thing and pretty soon Georgie has caught the scent of something crawling around my desk (and thus my feet… my BARE feet).

Now in CR, this can be anything from a beetle or an ant to something a bit more sinister… like a scorpion or a centipede (i.e. the ones you do NOT want under your bare feet).

Knowing this, I take a peek! What I see calms me. It is only a cockroach (albeit a really BIG cockroach!). As any regular reader of Dave Berry can tell you, the further South you travel, the bigger and badder the bugs! (Nice alliteration huh???) Costa Rica sports some truly impressive cockroaches and many are measurable in inches. This little fellow was somewhat smaller than Tom Cruise, but still a healthy specimen. He smiled up at me, winked, then headed under the PC!

OK… so I start “the search”. Those of you who think large cockroaches move noticeably slower than the tiny ones we had in Chicago might be interested to know that Costa Rica Grandes move about as fast as a good sized linebacker, so he was nowhere to be found.

I returned to work… until I felt a “tickling” on my arm. Oh shit….

Well I am considerable larger than most linebackers, but I assure you I moved my butt a whole lot quicker than Butkus ever dreamed.

There was my little buddy… looking up at me… his little feelers waiving around frantically, and I swear he winked again!

So… after changing my underwear, I returned to my desk and HE WAS STILL THERE! I am not sure, but I believe he may have found something edible in my keyboard.

He seemed unafraid, and (I don’t know why), I decided to watch him before I killed him. (Why does that sound so bad in print?).

So he moseyed around the keyboard for a while, then strolled up the monitor, back down, moved to the edge of the desk, headed down (art least until he caught site of the book in my hand), then back toward the relative safety of the keyboard (somehow KNOWING I was not going to use the book whilst he was on the keyboard!)

I then did a dumb thing… though as with most dumb things I do, it didn’t seem dumb at the time. I lowered my face down to get reeeeal good looksy at this guy (girl?). It was then it happened.

The damn thing FLEW into my face, then headed off the toward the kitchen.

I fell on my butt. ML came running over and asked if I was OK. I asked her “¿Sabes que estas cucarachas pueden volar?? or in English: Did you know these *%$^%&* cockroaches can fly??

Laughing, she said “Por supuesto!” “Of course”, and she returned to her book knowing her champion was injured only in his male pride (but I am sure she is now considerably less assured of her champion’s ability to protect her if needs be).

I set off after the BUG who laid me low and who was now caught between two cats and a palm.

This time, I took no chances and stomped his little lights out much to THE DOG’S delight as she stopped by for a quick snack of cucaracha al piso.

So, dear reader, you know know what I know (but YOU know it from the safety of your home).

“These goddamned cockroaches can fly!”

 

Flickr

www.flickr.com
TicoGrande's photos More of TicoGrande's photos

Search Me