Day 10, Leroy's Undead Vigil - Horrible Dreams

Leroy has now been dead for 10 days. He maintains his macabre station at the foot of the stairs waiting for one of his kind to remember him and take him to his final resting place. I personally don't care if another cockroach removes him, a rat, or even the end of a broom, I just would like to see him gone. For his own sake. Not simply because his continued presence causes within me a serious lack of faith in our building cleaning crew.

Though Leroy's family still has made no attempt to move his body, someon has clearly been tending to him. The crusted over guts that squished out of his cracked carapace as Leroy's soul met sole, are no longer present. I suppose some other insect, more disgusting than a roach, if that is possible, or perhaps another roach, has come along and eaten what remained of the good Leroy. Perhaps in the insect community eating another insect is a sign of respect.

"Leroy, you were a good friend. And though I honestly couldn't tell you apart from any other roach if my life depended on it, I feel safe in saying I knew you. You were a sweet roach, I always told my wife. And now, as she and I eat your slightly crusted, gelatinous remains, she sees that I was right. Or, more correctly, she tastes that I was right. Dude, you're delicious."

I'm reminded of one of the orientation days at college. All of these geeky groups has booths outside the student union and they were trying to get people to join. Let's face it, all of these groups seem freaky, or geeky, or just plain weird to outsiders, but this group was nuts no matter how you slice it. It was the entimology group. There were these two pimply faced students sitting next to a terrarium. The sign clearly read that they were entimology students and so I figured they must have a walking stick, or a praying mantis or some other wicked insect inside for people to mess around with. I approached and was utterly dismayed to see the biggest f-ing cockroach crawl from under the girl's sleeve and across her knuckles.

I must have frozen because the guy next to her cracked a wide smile. "It's a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach," he said. "Do you want to hold it?"

"I'd like to step on it," I said, and he laughed. "I figured you'd have something cool."

"This is cool. These are about the coolesting thing we could think of to bring. Anything cooler would have been able to fly away."

I had to admit that made sense. But it didn't explain why the girl was treating it like a pet. "Can you hear it hissing?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "Why is it doing that?" "She's doing it because she doesn't like being held," the girl said. The irony was too great and I couldn't resist saying, "So the horrible, nasty, disgusting cockroach doesn't want to be held by you? That's got to be a blow to your ego."

Luckily she took this in the good spirit it was intended and ran away crying, trying to comb the matts and crickets out of her hair. Ok, she didn't. She just laughed. She probably thought I was odd.

-Horrible Dreams

Ugh. All of this talk about roaches, an insect I cannot abide, has reminded me of last night's very short, but quite disturbing dream. My dreams are usually very vivid and often disturbing when I can remember them. Last night's dream was no exception.

You will need a tiny bit of history to understand this dream. I am not grossed out by all insects. I am quite fascinated, though appropriately respectful, of bees and ants. I also like butterflies, mantises, ladybugs, and all of the "cute" insects. But when I was about 12 I was mowing the lawn and as I passed under a tree I felt a horrible stinging in my hand. I had made the unfortunate mistake of brushing up against a caravan of Saddleback Caterpillars. Not highly venemous, their sting only hurt for about half an hour. Still, it aided in my general anxiety. Flash forward to last month and I was mowing my front yard again when I noticed a huge colony of slimely black caterpillars devouring one of my oaks. These were not furry like the gross caterpillars kids play with that make their hands smell so distinctly nasty. And they were not pretty like the Saddleback. They were leathery and hairless. They were gross.

Ok, enough history. My dream was very short. I stuck a Q-tip in my ear, which was itching rather badly, and I rubbed it around and around. When I pulled out the Q-tip, along with copious amounts of wax, there sat one of those slimey caterpillars wrapped around the end.

It was so disturbing that even after I woke up and realized that it was just a dream I was trying to rationalize how the caterpillar might have gotten in my ear. It must have been crawling across the ceiling and just as I pulled out the Q-tip it fell and landed right on the end. That must have been what happened. Because there is no way that nasty thing was inside me.

I got up and took a shower.