Operation Extermination

I have a problem. A roach problem to be specific. I love my flat, but I have one complaint: the kitchen is infested with roaches. Now, I realize that I live in Egypt, and a few bugs are par for the course, but I put my foot down when at any given time, you can spot 10-15 roaches crawling around the kitchen. I like to keep my home tidy, and I am NOT ok with having to rinse roach parts out of every dish before using it. I visited my landlord and politely requested that he send an exterminator. When he told me just to get some bug spray, I got a little more firm. "Dr. Galal, there are LOTS of roaches. Powder will not fix this. There are HUNDREDS. Dr. Galal, you MUST get an exterminator. They are going to take over your building and all your tenants will be very unhappy and they will destroy the apartments!!" Maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but he got the point, and promised to send an exterminator yesterday morning. In preparation for the decimation of the roach population, I took every dish out of the cabinets, washed them, and stacked them in the spare room on the coffee table and the bed. Then I emptied the contents of every cabinet and stashed it all on the dining room table, and waited for the exterminator to arrive. And waited. And waited and waited. And waited some more. And he never showed. Naturally. I decided to call again in the morning, and to spray a bit of Raid before going to bed, just to get a head start on the issue. And that was the beginning of the end...

When I do things, I tend to get carried away and give 110%. In this situation, that translated to removing every cabinet from underneath the countertops, putting them in the living room, moving the stove, moving the fridge, moving the washing machine, and using up an entire can of Raid killing the hundreds of roaches that were swarming the kitchen. At 1:30 am, with the kitchen turned inside out and the cabinets in the hallway, I started to wonder if I had lost my mind. I had country music playing while I was doing all this craziness, and had to laugh when Brad Paisley's "You Need a Man Around Here" played.

You've sure got a real nice place
So don't take this the wrong way
But I can tell by your decorating taste
You've been alone too long
You've got more candles than a midnight mass
That fancy mirror adds a touch of class
But do you know how good a mounted bass
Would look there on that wall

You need a man around here
You can't do it all by yourself
To me it's painfully clear
That you could use a little help
Someone to kill the spiders
Change the channel and drink the beer
Seems to me that you sure need
A man around here

I may have "more candles than a midnight mass," but I single-handedly wiped out the roaches, and then took a trip to Garbage City this afternoon to chase rats out of the art centre and clean 30+ spiders out of the corners. I feel pretty confident in my spider killing abilities. So long nasty rodents, arachnids, and insects!

Gotta run put my kitchen back together now....