“What is this thing on the floor?”

“What does it look like?”

“Like half a bug … half an outdoor cockroach.”

“It could be a half a bug. Ronin is fond of eating bugs.”

[silence]

“I can’t tell what it is.”

“Fine … FINE … let me look at it.”

This is the sort of silly conversations we have around Casa de Orb. In this case, Lin has seen something on the floor, and he can’t identify it. Rather than get closer to it or turn on a light and get a good look at it, he pesters me until I get up and have a look. As it turns out, it was, in fact, the back half of an outdoor cockroach. I guess Ronin ate the head end and got full.

Then, since it was a bit of nasty, icky bug, I was the one who had to get rid of it, because heaven knows Lin won’t touch a bug … even if it’s a dead half-bug that had apparently been laying under his computer desk long enough to be thoroughly dessicated. I had the urge to tell him it had likely been there at least a day or two before he saw it, but I decided it wouldn’t be nice to totally gross him out. He’s got this thing about bugs, you see … really, really, really doesn’t want any bugs, dead or alive, anywhere near him. He most especially has a thing about giant cockroaches. I swear, he was getting flipped out a little just standing there looking at half a dead roach.

Since this totally reminded me about a famous bug-related incident in our relationship, I have to share. Not like I have anything else to babble about today.

Way back when we lived in the apartment, we’d get about one of those giant flying outdoor cockroaches in our living space about once a month. Fuzza usually took care of them for us, but sometimes he’d miss one. One night Lin got home from work and decided to take a shower, so off to the bathroom he went. A few moments after he closed the door, I heard a little ruckus from that general direction. The door flew open, and I heard a HUGE ruckus in the bathroom … screaming, stomping, jumping, things getting knocked over. I turned around to look over the back of the couch, and saw a sight that will stay with me until my dying day.

There was my husband, buck naked, wielding a broom like a battle ax, and trying to kill a flying roach by swatting at it … screaming in fear and dancing like he was standing on hot coals. I know it’s not nice to laugh at people’s phobias (though Lin laughs at mine, so turnabout is fair play in this case), but I almost fell off the couch and passed out from lack of oxygen from laughing so hard. Just thinking about it makes me laugh just as hard all these years later.

When he finally fled the bathroom area and caught his breath, I asked him what the crisis was. “Roach. Big roach.” “Well, did you get it?” “No, it’s still in there. I think it’s in the bathtub!” Keep in mind, I am having this conversation with a big and burly, completely naked man holding onto a broom for dear life and gasping for air. I tried not to laugh, but I lost that battle. It was just too funny to resist.

Naturally, I grabbed a shoe, walked to the bathroom, snuck up on the monster hiding in the shower, and squashed it flat. A quick swipe with a bit of toilet paper and a flush of the toilet, and all was safe for Lin’s bathing needs. Did I get a “thank you” for slaying the mighty beast? Of course not, but I did get to laugh myself silly while he was in the shower, tell all my friends about it the next day, and give myself a hearty chuckle every time I think about it (every time I have to kill a giant roach to protect my big, burly man … or see or think about roaches).

I better stop thinking about it now. Lin will be home in a little bit, and it wouldn’t do for me to have to explain to him why I am laughing so hard there are tears running down my face. Being a manly man, he’s a bit sensitive about that incident.