Monsoon season is here.
Before coming here, I was somewhat nervous about what the summer in South Korea would be like. I had heard that summers in Korea were very hot and very humid. Summer is my favorite season. I love the hot weather, the beach, sunglasses, flip flops, the beach, iced coffee, barbecues, and I even kind of like the beach. But I CAN"T STAND humidity. Actually, it's okay if it's at the beach. Because, well, it's the beach.. With all of that water, humidity is inevitable, but the breeze totally makes it okay. And anyway, it's the beach... so.. yeah. Did I mention that I like the beach?
It actually hasn't been as hot here as I thought it would be. But humidity? GROSS. It tends to hover around 90-100%. And as much as I love the rain (shhh.. don't tell), I do NOT like the rain when it is 85 degrees out. Today I was walking around in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops... in the rain... carrying an umbrella. So of course, my feet are getting wet, I am in immediate danger of eating pavement (flip flops are not built for traction - at least not the $4 (actually ￦4,000) flip flops that you buy at - you guessed it - the beach), and my arms are getting wet because the rain can't follow the rules and keeps sneaking under the umbrella. So I have that nice, cozy, cold, wet, sticky, hot feeling. It's great. I'm a really big fan. Not.
But I can deal with all of this. My A/C works well and I'm quite comfy in my little home. I ought to be - my utilities cost me $100 bucks more last month than they did the month before - I can only attribute this to the A/C.
So what's my real issue? Clearly I'm not a fan of humidity. Or monsoon season. But I've just stated that I can deal, so what's the point?
Cockroaches. I CAN'T DEAL WITH COCKROACHES. Seriously. I can deal with a lot of things, but I am TERRIFIED of cockroaches. I'm not kidding. I realize that the extent of my fear may be a bit irrational. Although cockroaches are gross, they probably won't kill me.* Also, I am much bigger than them and if I could overcome my fear, I would have a fighting chance of killing one. But my attempts at being logical are not helping. I live in constant fear that I will discover one in my apartment. Just writing this is giving me the heebie jeebies and I want to climb up on something where I know I'm safe. I don't like spiders, bees, or most other bugs and creepy crawly things but I can deal with them. If there's nobody else around to do it for me, I'll kill the nasty little things. But I'm afraid if I ever find a cockroach in my apartment, I'll be more inclined to just move out. I don't know how much longer I can talk about this, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. I'm totally serious here, guys. You know me, I've held snakes before, caught lizards, pet a tarantula once (this wasn't a pet tarantula, it was one a friend found in Mexico - admittedly, petting it was ill-advised), killed many spiders and bees, but I don't do cockroaches.
I'm scared because I feel like there isn't much I can do to protect myself. I know there are precautions I can take that will help, but I can't really prevent cockroaches from getting in my place. It's like when everyone around you gets sick, you think it might be a good idea to take vitamins, and get plenty of rest, and eat healthfully. And it is a good idea. And maybe it will keep you from getting sick, but there's no guarantee. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WON'T GET SICK.
Part of what has me so paranoid is that last week, there were a few cockroach sightings at work. One of them was at my desk. Fortunately, I wasn't sitting at my desk at the time. But my friend Emma (who sits next to me) said that a cockroach was running around on my desk and hers. Then they discovered that it had LAID EGGS UNDER MY KEYBOARD. Yeah. Really. Suffice it to say that I cleaned my entire desk area (fortunately, someone else cleaned up the eggs and cockroach remains first) and for the rest of the day, whenever I was at my desk, I was sitting with my legs crossed in my chair and my iPod turned up to drown out the fear.
Writing this at night was not a good idea. Now I need to go to sleep but I'm too creeped out. Maybe if I clean my living room (which is also my summer bedroom - the A/C is in the living room) while watching some TV, I'll be able to sleep in an hour. If I have roach dreams tonight, I'm going to be VERY unhappy.
* According to this website, "Cockroaches can carry pathogens that cause asthma, allergies, abscesses, boils, bubonic plague, diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, intestinal infections, leprosy, lesions, typhoid fever, urinary tract infections and more."
4 comments:
EW i hate cockroaches too! BLEAHHIVENFSD. I don't know what I would do. Maybe you can buy a plastic bubble and live in it.
How big are the cockroaches there? Are they the same size as a rolly polly or a newborn baby foot? Have any of your neighbors said anything about having roaches?
I so wish I had a plastic bubble. Do you know where I can get one? I have only seen one cockroach here so far, thank God, and that one was about the size of a Nilla wafer. Is that an odd comparison? It was the only one I could think of. I haven't seen a newborn baby's foot in a while, but I'm thinking they're a little bit bigger than a Nilla wafer, but oblong? haha I guess I could go with that. The cockroach I saw was at work. I don't know my next-door neighbors, but a neighbor two floors below me said that she thinks she saw a really small one in her place. But anyway, I read that they can travel through the pipes for miles... ewwww...
Ewww!!!! I hate cockroaches!! I saw this huge one in when I was in the philippines. It was in the room I was sleeping in and I totally freaked out. I didn't scream...I just kinda wimpered and backed out of the room and watched it 'cause I didn't know what else to do. Finally, I realized that I could go tell someone else, so I went and told the ladies that lived at the house and they came up and killed it. It was pretty huge and disgusting. Then a couple of days ago we found a dead one in our apartment. Yuck! Fortunately it was dead, but my roommate sprayed it with Raid just to make sure and threw it outside.
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