David and the Roach

Since going off to school, I haven't been able to keep up on my regular pool practice regimen, which consists mainly of my playing games against myself at ungodly hours in the morning while the soothing sounds of David Bowie and Elton John play in the background to help me concentrate (occasionally LL Cool J serves in this capacity). So let's just say the skillz I left with are a little shaky.

So 4 AM rolls around, and, desperately in need to sharpen said skillz, I was about to start one of these marathon extravaganzas of tense billiard play. As I lined up the balls against the back edge of the table to rack them, I hear a light tapping steadily approaching down the left rail - the pitter patter of tiny roach feet. I look down, and BAM, a roach is climbing into the corner pocket, where my hand had been only a matter of seconds earlier. As my initial reaction to question why the Lord our God has forsaken me subsided, I raced downstairs to get the Raid. I come back upstairs and the roach has disappeared. The most terrible, suspenseful, dreadful time of roach hunting has approached: the quiet lull between having found the roach and, once having assembled the necessary arsenal to annihilate him and the unfortunate cat which will invariably begin licking the insect spray remnants as soon as the critter is dead, re-finding the roach. The calm before the storm.

After waiting for that roach to appear for a good five minutes of pure terror, I find out why I haven't seen him in the fairly porous pocket; the roach is on the fucking floor. I shit you not. I unload everything I got. The red carpet has turned white with the rain of death I'm pouring out upon this roach. He runs. He cannot hide. I capture him on his way to the wall where all the roaches I've ever chased run toward; I think it's how they get in, but I won't judge. Caught between hell and highwater, the roach turns and faces me and my Raid. I'll give him credit for not BAPing. I unload the fury of a thousand armies upon his back. Now the carpet and the roach are white with the poisonous spray. Yet the roach is still alive, because roaches are indestructible.

I throw paper upon it (I don't want to touch crushed roach), and throw the nearest brick (don't ask where it came from, I'm not 100% sure on that detail) upon that. The roach is still alive. Once again, my friends, I shit you not. I perform this task at least three more times. Limping, the roach emerges from underneath the paper, and heads towards the stairs, running for it's life.


FLASHBACK:
I once resorted to smashing the phone book, the Second College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary (ca. 1985), and the 9th Edition of the Merck Index Encyclopedia of Chemicals and Drugs (rough estimate of 1800 pages, for those of you unfamiliar with the work) and jumping upon all three to kill a particularly spirited roach. I knew fear that day, my friends, and it had an extraordinarily strong exoskeleton.


With this memory fresh in my mind, I refuse to let the roach trick me into thinking it's actually injured. I spray him again to keep him from running down the stairs; I'm a roach herder in my spare time. He turns, I relocate the paper, and I deal him a final death blow with the brick. I pick up the paper, find the flattened roach underneath, and honor the death of a fair adversary. Having given him a proper burial in the trashcan, I resume my activities and play the pool match I'd started 30 minutes before.
I won.