I just had a horrible thought.
You see, last night I (knowingly and willingly) brought 75 cockroaches, yellow jackets and carpenter ants into my home. Actually, I brought them up to my bedroom, sat them in neat piles on my bed, and then placed them into white envelopes, all while watching Intervention. (Guilty pleasure). Then, I put the bugs, each in their envelopes, on the floor next to my laptop bag, so I wouldn’t forget to bring them back to the office in the morning, and I went to bed. Normal evening, really.
In fact, I didn’t give any of it a second thought, because of course, the bugs were already dead and mounted safely in display cases to be sent out as press kits for our client, The National Pest Management Association (NPMA).
But, this morning, as I carried the creepy crawlers from my car into the office, a thought crossed my mind. You know where I’m going with this.
What if one wasn’t dead? What if one of those giant, scampering, long-antennaeed, scheming cockroaches was merely playing dead all this time, waiting for its chance to escape? Well then, my mind told itself, it would certainly be able to crawl right out of the display case if it tried. Cockroaches can fit through extremely tiny spaces, afterall. (I paused then, to mentally thank the NPMA for my wealth of cockroach knowledge).
My mind continued to race. What if the escapee is still in my house? Or worse, my bedroom. Then I really started to panic. What if it was pregnant? Wouldn’t that just be my luck. What if this pregnant, plotting cockroach was currently laying eggs on my PILLOW?? What if I got home tonight and found thousands of baby cockroaches encroaching on my house. (By this point I was ignoring all logic, and my NPMA cockroach knowledge, which told me that the average cockroach gestational period was weeks not hours).
I almost dropped my box of bugs in the lobby, just thinking about all of this. I raced into the office and frantically counted cockroaches under my breath. All 75 cockroaches were present and accounted for. None had escaped. My house was safe.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I relaxed. Don’t be silly, I told myself. There’s no way that could have happened. I mean, what are the chances?! And even if one had managed to escape, I knew plenty of qualified pest professionals (again, a mental thank you to NPMA) who could have handled my infestation.
Still, I think I’ll change my pillow case tonight. Just in case.