La Cucaracha

For all these years if spiders were the insect I feared the most, it was only because I'd never come face-to-face, glove-to-glove with the rat of the insect world, the cockroach.

They're big, they're fast, they proliferate and multiply when even threatened with murder. Having lived in a temperate climate for much of my life, I knew little of this. The cockroaches of my myths only found their way out of dirty hovels of basement apartments. They lived amongst the detritus of waste products at the back of derelict alleys.

In moving across the river, I'd heard rumours of this mythical insect. In Puxi, the buildings are old and the cockroaches are plenty, my friends warned. I scoffed, thinking that my apartment was newly remodeled and I had an ayi who cleaned my flat on a regular basis. 

But subtropical climates are the breeding ground for beasts of the wild. 

Post dinner on a non-descript Wednesday, I went to wash my dishes and was confronted with one sauntering languidly across my kitchen floor. I screamed repeatedly, three protracted, piercing yells like the signal of an impending freight train. It hightailed itself to the corner on its six scrawny legs and absconded somewhere underneath, possibly between the handbag and gym bag I had dumped on the floor. 

Cue little girl screams and invective expletives. In a week of deadlines, lesson observations and medical updates from London, it became the cockroach that broke the camel's back. 

I whipped into a raged frenzy and chased the damn thing around the tiny kitchen of my tiny apartment. It cowered under a shelving unit before making a break for my bedroom.  Cue more incessant screaming. Which must have stunned it into a new path because it made a beeline for the living room and disappeared.

Never to be seen again.

The next day I relayed this story back to my colleagues, the beacons of Shanghai knowledge. Instead of consolation I was greeted with horror stories, a virtual best-of worst cockroach stories. Ones that fly, ones the size of your hand. And then the horrible question: 'Was it an adult cockroach or a baby one? Because if it's a baby one, that means there's more, many, many more.' Um. Mine was more a teenager--bulking up but on its way to maturity. Unfortunately, where there's one, there's many.

I was caught unawares on my next sighting.  Sitting on the toilet, a toddler-aged cockroach languished in the corner. It didn't move. And so I had time to flush, then wield the mop and thwack it on the head repeatedly, screaming a warrior cry all the while. It fought for its life but I had the benefit of a handle. And eventually, it met its demise.

A week later, an infant cockroach crawled out of my rather unsuccessful attempt at growing chiles.

Now it seems the flat is somehow no longer my own. Cockroach bombs and boxes are out of season now so I've settled for a can of Raid. I also engage in a rather formal process of introducing myself to the usually unseen invaders by opening my door, loudly, turning on the light and stepping in by making as much noise as possible. It's a regular routine. Symbiosis?