Thursday, November 27, 2008

What I'm Thankful For this Year

Given all the ups and downs this world has seen this last year, it feels a little silly to say what I'm thankful for in 2008. But the truth must be told, and this is the truth.

This Thanksgiving Day, I'm thankful for no big bugs in our kitchen.

That's it. Doesn't take much to make me happy, huh?

Last Thanksgiving, I was having a much harder time being thankful. Oh, I had a wonderful husband and a warm house and food to eat. But what I really wanted was to be with anyone who we had known longer than six months. Family! Sarah & Zeb! Mike & Therese! I would have taken any of them! But Brian was terribly stressed out with all his papers coming due in a few weeks and didn't feel like giving Thanksgiving more than about eight hours. And so, he refused to travel to be with any of these people. And I guess I wanted to be with him the most, because I wasn't considering leaving him behind just to spend Thanksgiving away from Boston.

We did have people with whom to spend the day. Our small group from church was composed of similarly extended-family-less people, and we were coming together for a Thanksgiving potluck. I was bringing the pies.

Thanksgiving Day, I rose early, trying to have a good attitude and genuinely looking forward to the pie making. I walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. And there, staring up at me from my empty sink, was a big ol' cockroach. Ugh. Talk about ruining the cooking mood.

I screamed, and Brian, being a dear, jumped out of bed and did the honors of squashing it. I trudged to the closet and pulled out the Lysol and paper towels. After all, the pies had to be made.

It wasn't the first time. Shortly after we moved in in August, we found these creatures particularly liked our bathtub. I didn't mind them too much there, but I wasn't against caulking them out. Then they started showing up in our kitchen. And that was too much.

I caulked the backsplash. I stuffed steel wool around the pipes. I placed roach bait in the corners. I scoured the kitchen for any place they might be coming through the walls. And I thought I found them all. But they kept greeting us in the morning.

Discouraged, I started looking on craigslist for a new apartment. Brian, however, kept thinking. And finally, he taped the one remaining hole above our counter: our one electrical outlet.

It's hard to believe these cockroaches could climb through one of those holes, but it seemed to do the trick. We have been large bug free for exactly one year now.

The small ones still come in from time to time. But it's the big ones that I really couldn't stand. And it's the big ones I'm thankful are gone.

8 comments:

Marianne Elixir said...

Eww. What a lovely Thanksgiving morning story! I too, am grateful for no big bugs thus far in our new home (I think mainly we're just thankful for a home back "home").

deanna said...

Yay for you! And happy Thanksgiving, though it's almost over where you are. May the big bugs stay away for years to come.

Sarah said...

I hope your Thanksgiving this year was easier than last, it certainly was for us, not nearly so lonely now that we've done it once already. But it would've been so fun to do it together.

Janelle said...

Cute story, Mel. I have never seen a cockroach in my life, which I'm very thankful for. It's quite disturbing to have those sized creatures in your house.

I can't wait to see you this Christmas... I've been thinking about it a lot.

IndianaJones said...

Great Story! I had to read it out loud to Colin and we were both laughing like crazy. The first year we lived in Eugene we had much the same experience but it was our first place together, we were very young and didn't know what to do so we just gave each cockroach a name and greeted them back each morning. They lived there in our kitchen for that whole year that we lived in that town house by the railroad tracks.

Glad your second year away was a tad bit easier than the first!

Happy belated Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

Dear Melanie,

I feel your pain about having a Thanksgiving away from people you are used to having it with, and also about roaches. Both things I have had to deal with in my life, and they are not fun.

There are little compact things that look like space ships that have roach poisin in them, and roaches crawl in them, get the bait and bring it back to their family, and they all die. You can find them in the bug poision of the local store. They work, if you ever have a problem.

Sarah said...

Last night I dreamed that we were infested by very large, slow roaches. Somehow I knew by the way they were calmly walking around that they were scoping out our house for their inauguration stay, figuring out where they were going to sleep when they came to see the new president sworn in. I think this post put roaches in my mind and my days are taken up with inaugural housing, and two did meet in my dream.

Melanie said...

Sarah -
That is too funny! So business is good at the moment, eh? Is anyone asking to stay with you guys?