argh. the things i do for money. as part of my new piracy scheme, i supply a local cd store with downloads of the latest albums, and so, due to consumer demand, i was forced to download the new backstreet boys album last night. meanwhile, my other pc still has not figured out that i do not listen to backstreet boys, and has nicely added the songs from the new album to my playlist. stupid computer. why can’t you think on the same wavelength as me?
meanwhile, i have also supplied the store with the coldplay cd and the new dream theater cd. and, surprise surprise, dream theater sold about 200 copies on its first day, whereas coldplay sold about 20 copies so far. so therefore there are people who listen to progressive metal out there. if these are the same people who made me download backstreet boys, i’m afraid they need to be shot. in the head. at close range.
one of the perils of living in this corner of the world, besides having to coexist with people who still listen to backstreet boys, is having to coexist with cockroaches. i am intensely afraid of cockroaches. i will admit it. and i know why i am afraid of them.
when i was really young, i apparently used to go swatting cockroaches of all sizes and shapes to death. unfortunately, however, my sisters came along and taught me to fear them. it was one specific day, actually, back in 1989 (isn’t it sad that i can remember things that happened sixteen years ago? i feel so old). anyway, on this particular day, our house (we lived in the philippines back then) decided to become infested with cockroaches. not the nice friendly types that walk slowly up to you and roll over, like they want to be tickled on their stomachs or something. instead, these were the kind that flew into your face and then ran down inside your shirt. my sisters were both afraid of cockroaches, yet till then i had to deal with only one of them at a time in the presence of cockroaches. combined, the force of their screaming at the cockroaches overpowered my more rational urge to kill the critters. so i joined them in screaming, which set the cockroaches off even further. they flew in all directions, but mostly in our collective screaming directions. having no further recourse, we fled into the bathroom, where we found cockroaches flying out of the toilet. seriously. we then fled down the stairs and into the garden, where we engaged in more screaming and jumping up and down, not because there were more cockroaches there (there weren’t), but because we were on a roll and didn’t want to stop. meanwhile, when the maids finally stopped rolling on the floor laughing their ass off at our wonderful antics, they finally took control of the situation, and killed as many of the bastards as they could. but the damage was done. to this day, i’m afraid of large cockroaches, especially the ones that fly.
sadly, this house is also infested with the bugs. fortunately, however, i have managed to arrive at a decent compromise with them. it’s beautiful in its simplicity: they don’t fly towards me, and i don’t kill them. to further top it off, we have a simple arrangement: every time i need to go into a room that they hold their gala feasts in (i.e. the kitchen or the bathroom), i turn a light on ten seconds in advance, and they all scurry away out of the room until i’m done with my business and turn off the lights, at which point they resume their festivities. it’s a simple arrangement, but it works amazingly well. the numbers of flying cockroaches around me have dwindled down to none, and i haven’t intentionally killed a cockroach at this house in years (i accidentally stepped on one a few days ago. wasn’t my fault. it ran straight into my walking path).
the cockroaches at the office, however, are a different matter altogether. the other day, i was in the bathroom, and i spied a cockroach sitting opposite me. we stared each other in the eyes for a long time, and, just when i thought we had reached an agreement to halt all hostilities, the little fucker flew straight at me. at the time i was deeply immersed in taking a crap, and jumping up in the middle of passing a log out of your system is not really a sanitary and hygienic affair. i taught the little fucker a lesson though: i flushed him down the toilet. and then completed my crap in another bathroom. however, on the bright side, i haven’t met a cockroach at the office since that day, so the cockroach underworld over there must have gotten the message.
the most disturbing thing about cockroaches is the ones that decide to fly while mating. it perturbs me greatly. when i’m copulating, i’m usually too engrossed in what i’m doing to want to take off and have a nice flight around the room. if i could fly, that is. but i can’t, so thankfully that’s another distraction out of the way. but what perturbs me about this behavior is that i don’t know how to react. i don’t know whether i should kill them right away, or wait till they are done having their fun to kill them. i’d hate it if anyone stepped on me while i was getting it on, or at least if they stepped on me before i was done. this is a great quandary, especially in the spring, when the cockroaches decide to get it on en masse. my kitchen turns into freaking jfk airport, what with the huge number of flights taking off and landing at any point in time.
all this talk about sex is making me extremely horny. so, therefore, i’m going to go fuck off. later.