Today, for the second time, I saw a cockroach crawling on the floor of my neighborhood supermarket.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am deathly afraid of any kind of insect. There are some that I tolerate better than others, and most people find which ones I fear most to be kind of strange, until they hear my reasoning.
Example: A lot of people are really afraid of spiders. They can be deadly, they have eight creepy crawly legs, and let's face it, they are ugly. They appear in your home, make webs in hard to reach corners, and *gasp* might actually crawl on you.
My reasoning: Spiders aren't that bad. More typically, they are relatively small, they tend to stay in one place, and most of the ones you would ever see 1) don't bite and 2) aren't poisonous. If they do bite, it's at night when you don't see it happen, and sure maybe it leaves a bump, but it's not much worse than a bad mosquito bite (which, as I learned here in Brazil, can also be deadly or at least give you a very nasty flu). More typical spider behavior is to sit in a corner of the room, make a little web, and trap and eat OTHER insects that would otherwise be annoying. Spiders, you can stay.
The bug to fear: a butterfly or moth. These suckers have big old wings, fly erratically with no rhyme or reason, don't care if they get tangled up in your hair, and you risk swatting it and getting parts of its ripped wing on you, which I find to be really disturbing. And did you ever try to see one fly away with half of one wing missing? It is disgusting. Butterflies can be pretty from afar when they're sitting on a flower, sure. But then they fly in your face and flutter around you all fast and haphazard, and, just, ew.
Now that you see my rhythm here, let's talk about cockroaches. Yes, they appear in dirty places. Yes, they get in your food if you leave it out. Yes, some of them can fly (though I've never seen this). For the most part, they seem to not like people, they don't crawl on you (again, not in my experience anyway), they tend to only come out at night when they can freely feast on whatever crumbs you left out, and they move somewhat predictably. In all cases that I saw a cockroach in Brazil, they were just being chill.
1) On a street in Botafogo. Cockroach quickly crawled across the sidewalk from one building into a sewer hole. It just wanted to get from one dark place to another.
2) Basement of my apartment building. I was scared for a minute that my building was infested, but then I was like, nah, that's where all the trash gets dumped. If they are sticking with the trash in the basement of the building, more power to them. The more trash, the more it keeps them away from my place.
3) Crawling on the floor of the nearest supermarket. In the supermarket's defense, they do leave all that weird salty meat sitting out, along with the pão francês and some other stuff. Also, there is no door, just an open storefront. I simply don't believe that every bit of food in the supermarket is contaminated with cockroaches. Would I buy the salty meat that is sitting out the open, though? Hell to the no.
4) Again in the basement of my apartment building. Again it was just one, and he was chilling on the floor minding his business and didn't move once. Might have been dead, in fact.
5) Again on the floor of the supermarket. Again, rushing toward the exit to disappear into the darkness.
This post doesn't have a point, other than to say that I think houseflies that go really fast and slam into lights, and moths and butterflies, are much scarier than cockroaches or spiders.
And yes, I know I will probably feel differently the first time I get a cockroach in my apartment. I would probably rather have a butterfly infestation.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am deathly afraid of any kind of insect. There are some that I tolerate better than others, and most people find which ones I fear most to be kind of strange, until they hear my reasoning.
Example: A lot of people are really afraid of spiders. They can be deadly, they have eight creepy crawly legs, and let's face it, they are ugly. They appear in your home, make webs in hard to reach corners, and *gasp* might actually crawl on you.
My reasoning: Spiders aren't that bad. More typically, they are relatively small, they tend to stay in one place, and most of the ones you would ever see 1) don't bite and 2) aren't poisonous. If they do bite, it's at night when you don't see it happen, and sure maybe it leaves a bump, but it's not much worse than a bad mosquito bite (which, as I learned here in Brazil, can also be deadly or at least give you a very nasty flu). More typical spider behavior is to sit in a corner of the room, make a little web, and trap and eat OTHER insects that would otherwise be annoying. Spiders, you can stay.
The bug to fear: a butterfly or moth. These suckers have big old wings, fly erratically with no rhyme or reason, don't care if they get tangled up in your hair, and you risk swatting it and getting parts of its ripped wing on you, which I find to be really disturbing. And did you ever try to see one fly away with half of one wing missing? It is disgusting. Butterflies can be pretty from afar when they're sitting on a flower, sure. But then they fly in your face and flutter around you all fast and haphazard, and, just, ew.
Now that you see my rhythm here, let's talk about cockroaches. Yes, they appear in dirty places. Yes, they get in your food if you leave it out. Yes, some of them can fly (though I've never seen this). For the most part, they seem to not like people, they don't crawl on you (again, not in my experience anyway), they tend to only come out at night when they can freely feast on whatever crumbs you left out, and they move somewhat predictably. In all cases that I saw a cockroach in Brazil, they were just being chill.
1) On a street in Botafogo. Cockroach quickly crawled across the sidewalk from one building into a sewer hole. It just wanted to get from one dark place to another.
2) Basement of my apartment building. I was scared for a minute that my building was infested, but then I was like, nah, that's where all the trash gets dumped. If they are sticking with the trash in the basement of the building, more power to them. The more trash, the more it keeps them away from my place.
3) Crawling on the floor of the nearest supermarket. In the supermarket's defense, they do leave all that weird salty meat sitting out, along with the pão francês and some other stuff. Also, there is no door, just an open storefront. I simply don't believe that every bit of food in the supermarket is contaminated with cockroaches. Would I buy the salty meat that is sitting out the open, though? Hell to the no.
4) Again in the basement of my apartment building. Again it was just one, and he was chilling on the floor minding his business and didn't move once. Might have been dead, in fact.
5) Again on the floor of the supermarket. Again, rushing toward the exit to disappear into the darkness.
This post doesn't have a point, other than to say that I think houseflies that go really fast and slam into lights, and moths and butterflies, are much scarier than cockroaches or spiders.
And yes, I know I will probably feel differently the first time I get a cockroach in my apartment. I would probably rather have a butterfly infestation.
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