Hawaii Blog 3....May of 07

Madagascar Hissing cockroaches

Alright just when we thought Hawaii was the place for us to live forever. Did you know that there is not one single snake on the island of O'ahu? That right there is enough to get me to stay. The weather is amazing, it rains everyday (supposedly) but I have only seen it rain twice since i have been here and both showers didn't last more than 10 minutes each. Apon arival Lucas did warn us about the Geckos everywhere and they do have giant cockroachs. He showed us one that had been sitting in a lantern outside. Then it just disapeared, he said he had killed it. That was day one. Since then i have seen a couple more, mostly dead, I did find one in the utility sink right next to the washing machine theother day but had since seen it filled with water that the cockroach appeared to be dead. But for some reason.... Emily keeps finding them. A couple nights ago when emily was taking her shower she called my name, I dont know what she thought i was going to do about the situation but she informed me that a cockroach had scurried accross the floor. I wouldn't even go in to look at the darn thing. So I got Lucas and he went in there and smashed it with his shoe that he was wearing, wiped it off with some toilet paper and flushed it. YUCK! I was not nor did i want to be a witness to this event. Then last night! Everyone was in bed and drifting off to sleep scattered around the house. Emily again geting out of the shower came running and or called my name and informed me that something was looking at her from under the sink. Again... I didn't know what she thought I was going to do about it. So i told her to go get the bottle of roach killer, which she did. She came back in and i kept telling her she found it, she should kill it! She freaked out, and since we still were very sunburned she had her pj shorts an a tank top on. So armed with a towel shield and a can of roach and ant killer she started to inch closer and closer, I told her to read the directions because we might have to shake the can of poison! And we might only get one shot and if we were supposed to shake it first now was the time to do it.She did shake it and slowly inched closer to the giant roach which was mocking us but sitting just under the sink on top of a drawer and waving its 7 inch long feelers at us... ok so they may have only been  inches... but you weren't there! you don't know! they were ginormous, the closer she got the more neverous she got and turned to me and said ":CAN I PLEASE GO GET JOSH?!?!?" i kinda laughed and said you can go ask him. He was the unfortunate one whose light was still on. So emily politely knocked on his door and informed him that there was a giant cockroach in the bathroom and she was just too scared to kill it. He being that fabulous nice person that he is said sure no problem. He came in grabbed the roach killer and went to work, when he saw our visitor in the bathroom, he said "omg... its the size of a rat",I only watched for a brief period of time while Emily waited in Lucas bedroom just off from the bathroom. Josh Blasted it in the face with the roach poison and said "Sorry bug.......wrong house" at which point the roach either fell or scurried into the drawer. There were some more short blasts of roach killer and then i stepped back because i really didn't want to see what happened after that. We heard some rustling around and some thumping... we were hoping Josh was winning the fight with the 3 foot cockroach but we just weren't sure. After one final thump Josh emerged from the bathroom toilet paper in hand and said "the coast is clear". He was our hero. With a sigh of relief we felt the balance of the house had been shifted back in our favor. At which point we decided we should be taking some more ibuprofin for the pain of our sunburns. Having no water Emily bounced out throught the living room and into the kitchen where there were no lights on to get a bottle of water to help swallow our pain aid. She flipped on the light to make sure there was no roach awaiting her arrival on her water bottle. To her suprise there was another roach stairing her down nestled between the oven and the sink staking his territory on the tile of the kitchen floor. She grabbed her roach free waterbottle and fled to the bedroom to consult me on what to do. We decided since the roach was between us and anything we could use to kill and or capture it, he had won this battle. We then sat up for quite a while devising a plan on what we would do should we have another showdown with a roach, seeing how we were going to be "home alone" for a matter of hours the next day. Crushing them with your shoe seems like the obvious solution. But lets review... we both brought sandals and or sneaker shoes that only cover 40% of our feet. We do not know what breed of cockroaches they are. Do they jump? do they fly? can they play possum and have us fooled? We just dont know and those are too many risks to take. Emily researched cockroaches online this morning and found many homemade ways to kill and rid your house of roaches. Lucas' roommate Kenneth listened as we informed ourselves about our newly aquired enemies and plotted our revenge. He just looked at us in disbelief about 90% of the time. He kept saying... just crush them, thats the only way to kill them, then flush them down the toilet. Emily arguing with him said "it said that you can't kill them with your sandals" at which point he cut her off saying "IT SAID???,......Ive done it!" laughing at their bickering, i continued to listen to Emilys findings. All in all we have decided on our plan of attack. As we find these giant crazy scary, ugly, gross looking giant cockroaches we are going to place a contaner, glass, gladware, or whatever we have over them, set a heavybook on top of that and wait for one or more of the sailors to return home. After all.. what is living with 5-6 sailors good for if not swearing, making gay statements, and rid-ing the house of giant roaches? I fear the war has just begun between us and the cockroaches.