A Funny Story

*Disclaimer:  The photographs in this story were not taken at the time of the story.  They are simply "campy" pictures to go along with the "campy" story.  

Once upon a time, a group of friends and I went camping.  And when I say "camping," I mean staying a few nights in a nice little air conditioned cabin with a refrigerator, bunk beds, and indoor plumbing.  We were down in New Braunfels and we'd just spent the day at Schlitterbahn.  We'd had a great time, but after a long day of tubing, sliding, and surfing the wave pool, we were all chlorinated, sunburned, and exhausted.

I hopped in the shower almost immediately after returning to the cabin.  Now, the bathroom was designed so that the wall that separated it from the main cabin didn't reach the ceiling.  That meant that you could hear everything that your cabin mates said and/or did while you were in the shower.  It also meant that your cabin mates could throw things over the top of the wall and into the shower with you.  Red gummy worms, for example.  But that's another story.   

Anyway, I was in the middle of rinsing my hair out when I heard it: a blood-curdling scream that I immediately identified as belonging to my friend Kara.  She's the only one I know with the lung capacity to produce a scream like that.  I also knew that there was only one thing in the world that would cause her to scream like that.

There was a cockroach in the cabin.

Now, I'm terrified of cockroaches.  I used to be so scared of them that I couldn't get close enough to kill them.  Fortunately, I have overcome that and am now able to kill them viciously and effectively, if not particularly humanely.

Sure enough, mere seconds after the scream, I heard, "OH MY GOD IT'S FLYING!"  I knew immediately I was in trouble.  I leapt out of the shower, threw on my pajamas, and bolted for the main cabin, where all of my friends were curled up on their beds.  I scampered up to the top bunk with Kara and our friend Brittany.

"Where is it?" I breathed, feeling like a soldier hiding in a ditch from an enemy that was about to open fire.

"I don't know.  We lost it," Brittany explained, sounding tired.  I think out of the five of us, she was the least terrified of our uninvited visitor.

Knowing that none of us would be able to relax, or get down from the bed for that matter, we called one of the guys we were with to come over and kill it for us.  As he searched through the mess of food that was stacked up against the wall, we watched on, admiring him for his chivalry.  Unfortunately, he couldn't find it, so after wishing us good luck, he headed back to his own cabin.

The five of us sort of looked around at each other, wondering what to do next.  Poor Kara was about to have a panic attack.  Brittany looked ready to fall asleep.  I was getting tired too.  We'd all stayed up talking and laughing the night before and had only gotten about two hours of real sleep.  I realized then that I was more tired than I was terrified.  I wanted to sleep, but that wasn't going to happen as long as the roach lived.  Summoning up every ounce of courage that I possessed, I hopped off the bunk bed, grabbed a broom, and began poking around the room for the roach.  

No luck.

"I'm telling you, it's waiting for me," Kara said.  "As soon as I go over there, it's going to come out and kill me."

I didn't doubt it.  I wholeheartedly believe that roaches can smell fear and they will attack those that they believe are vulnerable.

"Maybe if we name it, we won't be as scared of it," I suggested.  Naming things usually creates some sense of endearment.

"Demon From Hell.  How about that?" Kara seethed.

"How about... Cuddly?" Our friend Kaitie suggested.  So our little friend became Cuddly the Cockroach.

It turns out that naming things you find disgusting and horrifying does not make them any less so.  We were all still just as terrified by the idea of Cuddly crawling on us as we were when he was just another nasty roach.

After we named him, Kaitie hopped down off her bed and helped me search for Cuddly.  Still no luck.

Then, taking a deep breath, Kara announced, "Okay.  I'm going to help.  You watch.  As soon as I get down there, it's gonna come out."

You have to understand that this was a big thing for Kara.  It was bigger than Harry facing Voldemort, or Frodo climbing up Mount Doom to throw the One Ring into the fire.  Cockroaches are literally her Kryptonite. 

And sure enough, less than two minutes later, "OH I KNEW I'D BE THE ONE TO FIND YOU, YOU LITTLE S***!  OH YOU LITTLE S***!"

What happened next will surely remain with me until the day I die.  Kara, dustpan in hand, whacking the life out of this roach for all she was worth, with every separate whack accompanied by some sort of expletive, some of which I'm pretty sure she made up.

"Kara, Kara, it's okay!  I think it's dead!" someone assured her.

"NOT.  DEAD.  ENOUGH."  Whack!  Whack!  Whack!  "IT NEEDS TO BE IMPALED AND DISEMBOWELED AND BURNED!"

After Cuddly was finally dead enough, we swept his poor, flattened carcass out onto our front porch.  We'd wanted to nail it to the front door and attach the sign, "Abandon hope, all bugs that enter here," but we figured the owners of the cabin wouldn't be too thrilled by that.

   Years later, I was in a poetry class and our assignment was to write a ballad.  Now, I am pretty much the worst poet ever, but as it turned out, I was actually kind of proud of my ballad, which was inspired by our poor, dearly departed Cuddly.  I realize that a lot of people share their poems on their blogs, so without further ado, I present to you...

The Ballad of Sir Cuddly B. Cockroach
An original poem by Jacqueline E. Smith

 Life in New Braunfels suited one
Sir Cuddly Cockroach fine.
Fresh country air, tall fields of grass
And campsites full of grime.

He lived life as a happy bug,
Full of stress-free, sunshine days.
By moonlit nights he searched for food
Through cabins' muddled maze.

Then one day in Cuddly's realm
Arrived five human girls.
Two were tall, two were short,
One wore a head of curls.

Now these girls seemed nice enough,
No motives to attack.
Cuddly stepped out to say hello,
A scream, a swear, a WHACK!

Sir Cuddly's blood was shed that night.
Just what was his offense?
Being born a lowly little roach,
Devoid of common sense.

Poor departed Cuddly B.
The life he loved so well
Was ended by the vicious girls
Who bid him, "Rot in hell!" 

*All photographs and additional content © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.