There's a Hippo in the Bathtub

When my daughter was a little girl, she loved the Anne Murray Song Animal Crackers... you know the one that has the lyrics 'you better come quick, 'cause there's a hippo in the bathtub.'

Well, that's how I woke this morning.  "Mom.... there's a bug in my shower... it's a cockroach."  Agghhhh!  Terry had already gone to work, my daughter refuses to kill anything living, so I was left to my own devices.....

I was warned of bugs before we moved to Singapore.  They are here.  It's part of life.  It's warm here and they are different than home and they are plentiful.  There are no cockroaches in Newfoundland as far as I know.  I did have one in my apartment in Nova Scotia one time.  I smashed it so hard with a shoe that I left a dent in the wall and then I stood in the middle of my living room crying. 

I am not going to be such a coward this time.

Last week, we saw a little spider in the apartment.  I got rid of it no problem.  On Friday past, my daughter opened her desk drawer to find a bug crawling in it.  Terry got rid of it, but I honestly think I would have been able to do it.. it wasn't that big and it wasn't a cockroach.

After my daughter's announcement this morning, I tried to act cool on the outside but my inside was full of jumping beans!  I swear I could not face this great fear.  What is wrong with me?  I'm about a thousand times bigger than the bug.  I poked the big critter only to see it whiz to the other side of the shower.  Those things move fast.  I kept closing the shower door in hopes it would disappear and I wouldn't have to deal with this.  That is what we do with our fears that we don't want to face, right?  My daughter proceeded to get ready for school... calmly!  How can a 16 year old be so calm in this situation???  This is an emergency.  So I get a shoe and get up the nerve to move closer to the big black creepy crawly and as I lower the shoe (much too slow obviously) it speeds across the shower again!  Eeeeee!  Shut the door!!!!  SHUT THE DOOR!!!  I gave in and texted Terry to find out how I can get rid of this thing.  According to my daughter, they are the most indestructable bug in the world.  Great! 

Terry's advice was to put on my shoes (this is in case it crawls over your feet), sweep it into a dustpan, then dump it into the toilet.  But what if it crawls out of the dustpan and onto the floor and out into the apartment?!?!  I analyzed and assessed and evaluated.  Then I shut the bathroom door and left it there.  So Mr. CR is now my temporary roomie.  I walk past that bathroom trying to ignore there's anything in there.  Thankfully (it is Thanksgiving afterall, and I have to say, I'm so full of gratitude that if I wrote a blog entry about it, you'd probably get sick of my gushiness... but I am incredibly thankful of the health, happiness and wonderful people and opportunities in my life), we have two bathrooms!

I'm calm again and I hear.... "Mom.... there's a bug in my shoe!"  Oh man!  Seriously?  This cannot possibly be happening.  So the teen gets another pair of shoes and I'm left to deal with the bug.  It's much smaller than the big one in the shower, but it will not come out of the shoe.  I shook it and poked it and it stuck there.  I tried to squish it and it's hard as a rock.  Uh-oh..... I put the shoe outside (our condo hallways are open to the air.. we  live in Singapore afterall) and leave it alone.  Maybe the critter (pretty sure it's a baby cockroach) will crawl away.

That's how my morning started.  And I sent my daughter off to school without lunch.

If you're following the blog, you know I'm searching for work.  However, much like the cockroach, I have poked at it and closed the door.  Working in a new country when you've only worked in one before is a bit intimidating.  Terry assures me it's the same as anywhere else with a few differences in culture and language.  But just like I did with Mr. CR, I have assessed all the things that could go wrong if I get a job. 

Time to open the door again and give it another try... to the job hunt... not the cockroach.