I'm at my mom's house this weekend. After a two hour drive, a huge dinner, and a few too many cocktails I hit the rack at about 10:00 pm. I roll over onto my back in the middle of the night and blink a few times and I see a cockroach on the ceiling. Not a run-of-the-mill cockroach but a Florida cockroach called a Palmetto bug. Long, skinny disgusting little creatures with antennae flicking about like bull whips.
Now, no person can sleep with a bug watching them and I was hoping he'd move along.
No dice. Just sitting there. So what to do?
I stumbled through the dark house to the pantry and got the broom. Good idea, huh?
So I get back to the bedroom and spot my target. I take aim.
I shove the broom at the little bastard and hit the spinning fan blade instead. Only glancing the bug and send him falling onto the bed where he regains his footing and scurries off the side of the bed and disappears. I look and look but I can't find the fucker and I just
know he's here somewhere.
I give up and lay back down, trying to forget about the little fucker.
Not happening. Every little sound makes me think it's him. I think I'm asleep but there's definitely no REM happening. I feel a hair on my leg twitch and I snap awake. Of course there's nothing there.
So I'm laying there drifting in and out when I feel something touch my foot.
I'm dreaming I think. I feel movement again, snap awake to find the cat looking to cuddle. I close my eyes again and I feel the cat crawl onto my chest and start purring.
I'm safe I thought and start to drift back off.
But the cat, being a cat, thinks that its play time and starts thumping on my chest. I open my eyes, ready to give the fur ball a talking to and what do I see? Of course, the cat has got that goddamn roach in his mouth, still alive and kicking and he's playing tag with it-ON MY CHEST! Antennae flicking at my face!
I freak out. The cat goes flying, leaving the dirty little roach behind. I jump outta bed and go after the bug but he gets away again! No going back to sleep this time. It's about 7:00 am and my step-dad is making coffee

and I tell him about my little adventure with the cockroach.
"Wait til you hear the possum under the house." he said.
Great. Another sleepless night.