I want to share with you my spiritual encounter with a cock-a-roach.

It happened last Wednesday night. I came home a little after four that morning (so maybe it was technically Thursday morning?) and entered my bathroom for a little me time. It had a been a long day, I needed to use the facilities, and as I sat down with Atlas Shrugged in hand I was really excited to relax and let things flow before going to bed.

I perused the bathroom, making sure no cock-a-roaches were lying in wait because not two weeks ago while engaging in the activities one normally undertakes in the bathroom one scurried out of the wall and went kamikaze on my foot. It was unpleasant you understand. I'm not a boy, I don't pee standing up, and so as I sat there, mid-stream with bare feet and no where for me to go. This cock-a-roach had taken complete advantage of my vulnerable state and attacked me unprovoked. The little bastard ran under the sink counter before I could kill him until he was dead.

Being scarred from this previous encounter I since began a ritual before settling into my restroom. I turn on the light, look all around and then, and only then, do I sit down to do my business. The bathroom is a sacred place to me, you understand. It is where I go to be alone; I have my book, I have no rules of propriety, I have nothing but absolute silence and solitude. Often I'll go to the bathroom even when I don't really need to if I'm looking for some me time. It's just what I do.

Now you understand both how I had been violated previously and why I am so protective of the time I spend in the bathroom. One does not kamikaze a bare foot while that bare foot resides in the bathroom. It's incredibly rude.

So there I sat, reading my book, happy as a clam looking forward to sleeping when I hear a scurrying sound from the shower. Girding my metaphysical loins for shock I pulled back the shower curtain and there it was! A cock-a-roach in my bathtub. More angry than scared I quickly pulled out the curtain to remove his only means of escape and slammed a transparent shaving cartridge holder down upon him, trapping him in place. He would no longer escape and I could kill him at my leisure. These were both good things.

I began to sit back (unfortunately for him he was in striking distance of my throne) and pull the curtain closed so that I could finish the section of my book, but I found I couldn't focus. He was there. In my space. Trapped, yes, but waiting for a moment's laxness in my guard to escape back to his 300,000,000 relatives. This was unacceptable.

But then I looked at him. I saw his little legs; I saw his body. I saw his head with the antennae on top and I thought, this isn't a monster. He's a cock-a-roach, a big one, but he isn't evil or scary or grotesque. He's just one of Nature's creatures who happened upon me at an inopportune time. I started to feel sorry for the little guy. I thought, I could let him go, take him outside and release him back into the wild. But if I did that, if I let him go he would tell all 300,000,000 of his relatives that they could come hang out in my bathroom and that wasn't going to work for me. My bathroom is me time. It's sacred, not to be disturbed. Despite all of that, though, I felt a slight bit of regret at my anticipation of killing him--sure it wouldn't stop his relatives from coming in, but I would only have 299,999,999 left to go. And he had invaded my bathroom while I was in it in direct violation of the cock-a-roach/jess agreement of 5-1-08. He really had no one but himself to blame.

So I finished, I flushed, I washed my hands. I walked out into my bedroom and picked up my tennis shoe. I walked back into the bathroom and felt a slight bit of ickiness at lifting up the shaving cartridge--even though there was plastic between my hand and it I was still nervous about being that close. But it was time. I needed to kill him and he needed to die. Our impasse was at an end. Leaning down I lifted up the plastic and smooshed the cock-a-roach with my shoe. I didn't slam it down, I didn't beat him repeatedly. This wasn't a murder committed in anger without thought or self-control. No, I knowingly ended his life quickly and humanely in order to preserve the safety of my bathroom.

As his little smooshed body was flushed down to the sewers of the desert I could only fervently hope that one of his relatives would find him and realize that my bathroom was not to be trifled with. I am no longer scared of cock-a-roaches; I recognize their place in the cosmos. If not for my poor dead adversary I would never have had such a realization. But despite all of that--despite our spiritual, life altering moment he still had to die. And so I will kill every cock-a-roach that intrudes on my me time, quickly and without remorse.

Such is the circle of life.