Originally published in The Clifton Courier, February 25, 2020

Do you ever have mornings that set the crappiest possible tone for your day?

Like when you drop a whole tub of yoghurt so it lands lid-off, face-down on the kitchen floor? Or you got to put moisturiser on your toothbrush? Or you wake up covered paste grimy paste of sweat and human dust?

It just doesn’t put you in good stead for the day ahead.

I’ve been led to believe that we all have days like these, mostly because of the theme song for Friends. But I don’t know if my most recent example of this would fit into a jaunty song about friendship.

I’d had a pretty big night (and by “big night” I mean “I stayed up beyond my bed time to watch a talk by Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud”) and when my alarm went off at for work 3.30am I was in no way excited to start my day.

I got up, I turned on my light so I wouldn’t go back to sleep and had a cheeky scroll through my phone while I lay in bed so I could wake up properly.

We all know this is a terrible idea. You’re not going to “wake up properly” if you’re still horizontal after your alarm goes off. That’s not how things work. You’re going to go right back to sleep.

But still I tell myself the lie that my will power is stronger than my body’s need for rest and that the internal racket in my head is loud enough to stop me from sinking back into my slumber.

Of course, on this morning, I began drifting off again.

But a few seconds later, I was jolted awake but the sensation of something clambering over my body.

And then I remembered the massive cockroach I saw flying around the room when I went to bed a few hours before.

It wasn’t dog-sized or anything, but it was big enough for me to be able to see without my glasses on. It looked like it had been living a very comfortable life. Too comfortable, if you know what I mean.

I wasn’t in a good way. I was awake at 3.35am and had been woken up by a beefy cockroach scuttling all over me.

And, look, as far as creepy crawlies go, I don’t think cockroaches are the worst of the worst.

They don’t seem to be bitey. They’re not slimey. And even though all the logic I posses is screaming at me that they’re covered in disease, I don’t find them as filthy as rats.

I mean, I don’t want them touching me. But so long as they respect my personal space, I don’t have the all-consuming desire to destroy them.

I guess it’s what they represent that irks me the most.

The presence of cockroaches in your living space suggests you’re someone who doesn’t wipe down surfaces*. Who doesn’t cover meat when they put it in the fridge. Who collects old newspapers – not because they want to have a physical log to act as a record keeper when we enter the age of digital-only, subscription-based everything – but because they can’t be bothered to place their unwanted items in a bin.

* But under my roof (which isn’t technically “my roof” in that it belongs to me, but in the sense that it’s the roof I’m most often under) the surfaces are wiped often – maybe even too often. I mean, it’s a very clean house. I have a few magazines I haven’t yet read, but newspapers get turfed by the next visit from the garbage truck and we have an supply of ample Tupperware containers for ensure all food is properly covered in our fridge. 

In short: someone who is lazy, untidy, grubby and, since we’re going there, probably smokes cigars that smell like the tobacco was cut up with the stuffing from a old couch left out in the weather for a few winters*.

* Again, under my roof, we may laze about a bit over a weekend, but we are very tidy people. We watch a lot of HGTV and have quite a lot of house pride – I’m pretty sure that’s just correlation though; it’s not like we were slobs before our addition to Americans lusting after countertops and making bad realestate decisions. We’re functioning, tidy adults, for heaven’s sake.  

It paints a picture of a chaotic mess. I’m also picturing a lot of muddy browns, snotty greens and stain-like yellows*. Cockroaches have a lot of unpleasant connotations. And I don’t want those kinds of associations pinned to me.

* Most of the colours in this house are whites, purposeful greys and varnished timber. And the greens are far from snotty, for your information. 

So to have a cockroach not only living in my house, but thriving in it to the point that it feels entitled to climb all over me doesn’t make me feel like my best self.

How did I pick myself up after this? I boiled the kettle, fixed myself a cup of tea and carried on with my day. Eventually, I got through it. After vowing to personally take out the cockroach that dared disturbed my slumber (but, helpfully, made sure I got to work on time) decided not to let The Incident determine the course of my day.

I don’t know what the takeaway message from this is. Maybe it’s about keeping up with pest control measures. Maybe it’s about closing flyscreen-less windows. Maybe it’s about acknowledging that bad days happen while still hoping for brighter dawns ahead.

* Ok, despite my original conclusions, I’ve not seen a cockroach since that incident. This leads me to believe it’s less of a pest thing and more of an insect haunting situation. And by that I mean, an insect flying into my window, hanging around and messing with me for shits and giggles. No one can say who sent said cockroach and, while some might say it would be a folly to try to point fingers of blame over a single insect encounter, I can’t help but think The Universe is behind it all. Perhaps it’s trying to teach me something about closing windows or was trying to keep me grounded. Or maybe, for some reason, despite all the complexities and large-scale events going on in the world, The Universe had a vested interest in me going to work on time, but wanted to communicate that it was a little miffed with me so it sent a cockroach to do its bidding.