Cockroaches, spiders, and more oh my!

This week has been a bit rough as the generator used by our campus is out of commission.  I’m not sure how long it will be before it is back on.  This means we are relying on Escom, the local power provider. When I return home from school in the afternoon, I’m without power and some evenings it comes back on around 5:30 while other evenings it’s been out until 8 or 9 pm.  I can easily light candles and eat some cereal, but what I really can’t stand is the critters.  For some reason, when it is dark, I start to get really creeped out by them and a bit paranoid.  There’s something about not being able to see well but being positive that there’s a fairly large black thing scurrying across your floor.  Also, we’ve had quite a few cockroaches lately.  I’ve killed on average 5 a day in my house over the past week. I strongly dislike chasing them and stomping on them, but I have an even greater dislike of knowing they are somewhere in my house and came to where I could see them and then got away.  I also keep a bottle of  “doom” next to my bed to spray if I see them on my floor.  Every night before I go to bed, I tuck my mosquito net in and search the floor one last time.  About a week ago, I did this and then went to sleep.  I was awoken at 2 AM when a cockroach crawled across my face, up my ear, and into my hair.  I didn’t fully wake up until it was in my hair, running around.  I started scratching my head, trying to find where it was so I could get it out.  I grabbed it and threw it.  I then jumped out of my net and turned on my light.  There it was, sitting inside my net.  I have no idea how it managed to get in, but I sprayed it and killed it.  I then decided that has to be up there with the worst ways to wake up! 

My encounters with creepy critters continued yesterday when the power was out and I was over at Carson’s house.  We were eating dinner by candlelight when she said she had seen a cockroach run underneath a suitcase that was leaning against the wall.  I stood up and told her I was ready.  I couldn’t see very well, but when she moved the suitcase, I stomped.  It ran up the wall and I kicked if off and then stomped again.  It was then that I realized it didn’t have the same feel to a cockroach.  We shone the light on the floor and we both screamed when we realized I had killed a chop chop spider.  I hadn’t seen one of these before, but had heard all about them.  What I had heard was that they are huge with pinchers and that they are very aggressive.  They will actually run at you in fight mode with their pinchers ready.  When I stomped on this one, it left a trail of guts behind.  When I say trail of guts, I am not exaggerating.  They actually shot quite some distance! I had to grab my camera after the kill.  I am so thankful that it was dark so that I couldn’t see what I was going up against.  Apparently they can actually hurt you.  If I had been able to see it, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near it! 

I came back to my house after dinner and ended up killing 3 more cockroaches by candlelight.  After seeing the spider, I was much less bothered by the cockroaches.  Maybe by the time I leave here, they will not longer give me chills and make my skin crawl!