Let's Be 'Pest' Friends Forever!

"It's cold in here", I whispered.

I don't like the cold because it reminds me of fashion week. Why? That's one story about an egg whisk, 2 liters of ethanol and a large Doberman named "Floppy" that I'd like to forget.

She turned to me and spoke: "Then why are my hands melting?"

She said that, but wasn't awake. She frequently talked in her sleep and that, along with the vicious night terrors made her a difficult bedside companion.

That's when I thought it was time for a glass of tea, which for me was me-speak for "a glass of T".

2 hours of "The A-Team" later and I started to make my way back to bed. That's when I noticed a large Jewish cockroach on my wall.

How did I know he was Jewish? It was the peyes and yarmulke.

Thinking that perhaps his Judaism might indicate he was a cockroach of superior intelligence, I spoke to him.

"What are you doing on the wall?" I must have been crazy thinking that the cockroach would talk back.

"Wall?" he responded, "Really? I thought I was on the ceiling. CHRIST, I'm all upsidedown: just like my life".

He began to sob profusely; like he was appearing on A&E's "Intervention", hoping that his younger cockroach brother could be saved from his crippling Wallpaper Paste addiction. I thought I should console him.

"Are you OK, Mr...?"

"Roachawitz. And yes...'I'm OK' ". He used air quotes with his 6 sticky hands, which is a sight to behold.

"It's just that I'm one of 100,000 suitors for the queen roach; I'm desperately in love, but she barely knows I'm alive, so it's killing me. But even if I do get her, she'll eat me during sex; so I'm dead either way: damned if I do, damned if I don't".

I could identify with his plight: "Hey, us humans are just like that. It's like when you're at a bar and go up to a woman - she could reject you and make you feel like shit, or you could end up in a relationship, which is like death".

He looked at me and smiled. Everything went blurry; in this world it was just him and me; me and him. Cockroach and human, inexorably tied together through the common bond of morbid depression and a sense of helplessness.

"You know", I said. "We're not so different, you and I. You eat filth and I had Korean food for dinner last night. Same thing".

"Yes", he said. "We cockroaches have tough shells that make us one of the hardest insects on the planet; but inside we're soft and emotional, like a wounded child. In much the same way, you're a dribbling mess who's incapable of becoming emotionally mature".

"Touche", I said. "I guess you and I should be 'pest' friends forever".

We started laughing and it ended with a hug.

"Oh man, I feel like this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship", he said. Just like Sarah Palin and John McCain: The Two Original Mavericks!"

"What?"

"They'll bring change to Washington."

"But they're Republican, and they have almost exclusively the same policies that George Bush has, down the line".

"She's a woman and I've never heard of her. That's the right kind of change".

It was then that I slapped him with a newspaper...he died immediately.

That's when I realized this cockroach was a little too human for me.