Yesterday, after suffering odd morning-dreams about people destroying my friend’s apartment with sledge hammers, I awoke to three strange men wielding power tools (TSMWPT). They were replacing my friend’s oven which, as I learned, is an all-day operation. They also took over the entire kitchen, forcing me across the street for coffee and a bagel. I love toasted everything bagels with cream cheese and tomatoes, so that was cool, except for the part where New York City is like out of tomatoes on account of salmonella or something. The guy looked at me like, lady, don’t you read the papers?
Newspapers? Newspapers! Damn it, Bagel Guy, I’m a writer, not a reader!
Anyway, after the oven ordeal, which included an big hole in the office wall with lots of wires and metal things poking out that I was ordered not to touch (right, and I was just thinking, “what do these wires do? What would happen if I twisted them together with my fork while blow-drying my hair and standing in a wash-basin full of water?”), I was finally rid of the TSMWPTs and ready to cook a nice dinner.
Ok, this next part is really gross and embarrassing so we’re going ESPN extreme highlights on this one.
*Begin movie guy announcer voice*
In a world where solitary writers go too long without contact from the outside…
- Me: La la la, I’m making yummy dinner, la la la. I’m going to—wait, what the f*** was that?
- CR: *Scampers across kitchen floor.* No, no scampers is the wrong word. Saunters is better. *Saunters across the kitchen floor.*
- Me: What the f***?!!!! *Jumps on one foot repeatedly to reduce surface area of body touching its potential path*
- CR: Hi! I’m the world’s biggest cockroach. And I am here to f*** you up. Booooo!
- Me: What the f***?!!! OMG are you talking to me?
- CR: Yes! And now is the part where I stalk you! *Stalk stalk stalk*
- Me: Are you following me? Ewwwwww! Arhhhhhhhh! Why are you so big? Get away from me you f***ing many-legged exo-skeletal freak!
- CR: You can run, but you can’t hide! *Stalk stalk stalk*
- Me: *Has nervous breakdown, complete with full body sweat, the shakes, heart palpitations, crying, calling husband*
- Alex: Bims, I’m seriously worried about you. *Offers complex kill strategy involving trapping, mushing, and scraping*
- CR: Let’s see what happens if I go over here. *Saunter saunter saunter*
- Me: It’s chasing me! Ewwwww ewww ewww it’s going to mate and multiply and crawl all over me in my sleep!
- CR: Boo! Hahahah! I am going to eat you.
- Alex: Just get a newspaper and—
- Me: Arhhhhhh!!!! Ewwww! *Hangs up on Alex. Dials Pook, who is playing pool around the corner.*
- Pook: What up? You wanna meet for a drink?
- Me: Okay okay okay I know I’m crazy but you have to get here like right now oh my god f*** just get here okay f***ing now please?
- Pook: What happened? Are you all right?
- Me: There’s this giant crawly thing and he’s brown and shiny and stalking me and—
- Pook: Are you f***ing serious?
- CR: Wow, you really are ridiculous. Boo! *Stalk stalk stalk*
- Me: Get here! I’m hyperventilating!
- Pook: Hahahahaha okay, be right over (and by the way, sack up, you whiny bitch).
So, um, ya, my brother had to leave his pool game to come and do a perimeter sweep, which was sadly unsuccessful, and I was so creeped out that I couldn’t eat my dinner until like 2 hours later, and it’s all because the TSMWPT displaced this giant South American poisonous hissing cockroach when they put in the new oven. By the time I could go to sleep without freaking out about the bug, the sun was up and I then convinced myself that someone was in the apartment and I actually dialed 9-1-1 and had my finger hovering over the SEND button because I just knew that when I opened the door I’d see a murderer, a rapist, and a giant cockroach, and the roach would laugh and turn to the others and say, “See? I told you she was here all alone.”
When I told my agent parts of this story today, he just nodded and smiled looked at me in his patient, understanding, I’m-used-to-dealing-with-fruitloops-all-day way and said, “You’ve become Jack Nicholson in The Shining.”
Heeeeeeeere’s Sarah!
Just another day in the glamorous life of a writer in New York.
Sarah Ockler 
I can’t even remember the last time I even SAW a cockroach.. I guess they just don’t like the fresh air and wide open spaces of country living!
LOL. That’s so classic. I suppose The Shining is better than Naked Lunch…
Very funny! And I loved the pics of your walk in Central Park too. One time the cat brought in a chipmunk and let it go…or I should say…the first time, as many, many chipmunk were to follow over the years. This was right after I’d moved from the city where I’d lived with an apartment cat to rural Tennessee where the cats roamed free. My husband was away and I had just hung up the phone from talking to him when it happened and I immediately called him back even though it was midnight. I was standing on a chair freaking out! He was laughing his ass off. Eventually, the chipmunk crawled into a piece of rolled up carpet and I launched the carpet and chipmunk out the door! No cockroaches, but plenty of mice, opossums, moles, chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and even a skunk (although the cat didn’t bring in the skunk or opossums) ended up in our house one time or another. I’m an old pro at dealing with wildlife now!
We used to get mice and bats where I grew up. I’m okay with that kind of wildlife (well, not the bats as much as the mice). I don’t even mind spiders, which we used to get in Colorado all the time. But back in NY, it’s the creepy crawly dirty only-ones-to-survive-a-nuclear-holocaust things that freak me out. I’m not sure I’d do so well with the skunk!
Yes, well, I’ve never even seen a cockroach. Lucky me…Oh, wait, maybe when I was in Hawaii. The skunk came up through the heating duct into our master bath. Luckily our bedroom had an outside door and so I opened it and the cold air wafted in and he realized he could get out and ran through the bedroom and outside. Until that point, I didn’t know WHAT was in our bath, I’d just heard a loud clunk when he knocked the vent out and when the cat went to investigate she backed out of the room really quickly so I had my suspicions as he’d been living under the house for about a year! He came up through another vent one more time, but our big cat stood over the vent and meowed at him and he turned around and went back out the way he’d come. After that, he stayed under the house and we’d only see him in the yard occasionally (he probably still lives there as the house is empty and for sale!).