Lebeeya vs. Beast: Office Edition

A few weeks ago I overheard a conversation between two guys while waiting for the elevator. One guy was complaining to the other about a cockroach uprising in his office. I remember thinking in my head that I am glad our floor doesn’t have that problem. It’s either I forgot to say Alhamdulilah or it was just a matter of time before they got to me because this week, the cockroaches decided to hold a cockroach league in my office (where else would they hold a meeting?). At first, everything seemed normal -I walked into the office in the morning, sat at my desk and was checking my e-mail when I saw out of the corner of my eye something dart across some papers. I didn’t investigate because one of the great lessons life has taught me is that not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it. Two minutes later, I sense movement again. I turn my head and see two tiny cockroaches chilling on a piece of paper. I assess the situation, consider my options than grab the closest semi-stiff item (a tissue box) and kill them both. The killing required multiple bangs of the tissue box to ensure their immediate death. Call me Lebeeya, The Cockroach Slayer

Side note: I have no problem killing tiny cockroaches, but I cannot kill those big ones, they make me sick plus they are so huge they could beat me up in a standing fist fight. More than killing bugs, I absolutely hate picking them up with tissue after massacring them, it’s so disgusting.

After cleaning up the mess and washing my hands 100+ times in the bathroom, I let out a sigh of relief while walking back to my office, thinking that the battle with the cockroaches was over. Little did I know that this was just the beginning.

I walked back into my office and fainted.

I was gone for 5 minutes and that was enough time for them to take over my desk in full force, they were all over my keyboard (probably laying their eggs there?) and wandering around on my table as if they were on vacation in Europe enjoying the scenery. They were in all sizes, tiny, small, big, large, and huge.

It was so bad, I considered changing jobs. No job is worth sharing my office with cockroaches.

I closed the door and went to get help.

After a few phone calls, and much internal suffering, the building maintenance department comes in and asks everyone on the floor to take a break while they did their job and sprayed the entire office with some cockroach-killing chemicals.  

 These are the men that did the job. Actually, this is how I imagined them to look like.

But this is how they really looked like. 

A few hours later, we were all asked to come back to the office, which now, supposedly, was cockroach-free. I still had my doubts. I know how stubborn bugs can be so when I got there, I opened the door to my office like a police officer entering a crime scene: quietly, cautiously, eyes darting around the room searching for movement. After a thorough investigation of the entire room, I felt confident that the building management had eradicated the cockroach uprising, or maybe reached a settlement agreement with them. Either way, I was relieved. I went to my desk and sat down to get some work done.

After about 30 minutes, it happened. My worst fear. I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. No sooner did I audibly say to myself, “It can’t be...” did I see it approaching me. One cockroach. One, huge cockroach. moved slowly as if thinking, “Where did everyone go...”

I was paralyzed, not only by fear, but literally I couldn’t get up. I was looking at him, he was looking at me, both of us wary of any sudden movements. My gaze was locked with this large bug for a few minutes as my brain tried to come up with a plan. I won’t go into detail about what happened next. But basically after a few minutes, the cockroach stopped moving so I slowly got off the chair, slid passed my desk, and out of the office never taking an eye off him. He remained still. In fact, he may have been dead (chemicals finally kicked in?) but he could have been just playing dead. You never know. Bugs are sneaky. They haven’t survived for millions of years by being predictable. 

I am typing this post from the conference room, which I now call my new office until I am 100% sure there are no more cockroaches in my office.

May the rest of my day be less traumatic.

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