"Would you like me to spray you?"
There was a huge hulking man standing at my office door. He must have been 6'5", 300 pounds. He had dark features and pasty white skin and looked like an ex-con. And he had a large industrial pump sprayer.
I was totally startled. We had watched "Hostel:Part II" the night before (the boyfriend loves his slasher films) and the sight of a large Slavic man in a jumpsuit filling the door frame was unsettling. It was only then I noticed the "Terminex" logo on his breast pocket. He was here to spray for bugs and wanted to know if I wanted him to spray my office.
About fucking time.
The cockroach carcasses had been piling up all week and everyone in the office seemed to willfully ignore them. The dead roaches were everywhere - the offices, the lobby, the kitchen. They had turned the main hallway into a minefield. And yet no one did a damn thing about it or even acknowledged they existed. I wasn't going to say anything (When in Rome...). And I sure as hell wasn't going to pick them up and dispose of them; I do enough of that at home and they don't pay me enough to deal with it. It was strange behavior, even for Bakersfield.
But then it turned even stranger Friday morning.
I have no idea what happened, what magic threshold had been reached, but first thing yesterday morning some sort of Roach Rubicon had been crossed and the office was in a full blown cockroach panic. Women, who just the day before were casually sidestepping all the dead bodies without a care in the world, were now acting as if this was the first they'd seen of them. And they were terrified.
I swear these people are certifiable.
There was a frenzy of aggressive vacuuming. Of course the machine's settings were wrong and all they did was grind the little bodies into the carpet, but whatever. And finally an exterminator was called and now Lurch was standing in my doorway wanting to spray me.
"Would you like me to spray you?"
I stupidly said yes and for the rest of the day my office smelled like a car air freshener and I thought I was going to throw up. I probably just shaved a year off my life.
Someone really should look into the people of Bakersfield and their bizarre relationship with their cockroaches. There's something deeply unhealthy and/or symbiotic about it.
Then again, maybe not. I'd be afraid of what they'd find.
I already know more than I care to.
