Of bugs and cats and trauma

I noticed that after the adoption of the cat, roach and lizard sightings within my apartment walls were decreased to almost zero. Since I have observed Matisse catch and chew on a fruit fly before, I just assumed that the disappearance on vermin had something to do with the predatory instincts of the domestic house cat.

I witnessed survival of the fittest in my kitchen last night. Nature at its best.

Matisse really, really likes to get into my cabinets whenever I open it to scoop up some rice for dinner. I actually have to stand in front of the door whenever I open the cabinet and try to block the opening with my lets. The cat always finds a way to weave through and get her way, however, and I had to wonder why. Unfortunately, last night, I had to find out. Matisse was in the cabinet again, proudly displaying a 2-inch-long cockroach that apparently she had just caught.

For all of my Yankee friends out there, you have probably never imagined that such a monster could actually exist. And consider yourselves truly blessed. Warm weather all year long, damp atmosphere and abundant fauna had allowed nature to create the mutant cockroach. If you squish this thing on the wall, you will have to repaint the wall, no joke. It is the size of your thumb, it flies, and it is not afraid of light. In fact, the first time I have seen one of these things, it flew INTO light, making it even more creapier. And it looks just like a regular cockroach you would see in an apartment in New York City. Ironically, these cockroaches are supposed to be clean and docile, and Houstonians call them "Tree Roaches" or "Water Bugs". Yeah, right.

Thankfully, a blogger for the Houston Museum of Natural Science claims that these bugs do not mean an infestation within your own house. Apparently, they really do prefer to live in trees and have a hard time reproducing within your own walls. All my coworkers try to reassure me that finding a mutant bug in your kitchen is much, much better than finding a regular sized bug; the regular roaches, or "german roaches", actually do reproduce in your apartment and probably signal a deadly infestation. (http://blog.hmns.org/?tag=roaches-are-obsessed-with-cleanliness)

Regardless, I still called up my apartment management first thing in the morning to have my kitchen treated for roaches. And I still have no idea what I am going to do with the bag of rice that was in the cabinet that the cat and bug was there. Matisse, apparently finding this a good joke, munched up the body of the roach and left its legs and antennae neatly on the floor for me to clean up. I swear, the size of one of the legs was 2.5 inches long. Now that I have calmed down a bit I worry that the roach may have been previously poisoned and whether this will hurt the cat since this apartment complex treats for roaches every week. But she seemed perfectly fine this morning, although she did seem a bit bewildered when I proceeded to brush her teeth and wipe her paws before I gave her the morning cuddle.