Eric's Beijing Diary

Cockroaches. I hate those critters. I didn't used to. My position with cockroaches has always been, "You leave me alone, I leave you alone; you crawl on my face, I flush you down the toilet." But recently, my feelings toward those totally innocent creatures have become increasingly malevolent.

I think it was last summer that pushed me over the edge. Not that I was so terribly fond of cockroaches before that. But somehow, they were more or less tolerable. The cockroaches here are not as big as the ones in Arizona. But maybe that's because in Arizona I lived, for a time, in a basement apartment. Believe me, I learned my lesson. Never live in a basement apartment in Arizona. The cockroaches in that place were huge. Here, they are much smaller, and they tend to pretty much disappear in the Winter. Cockroaches are tropical, and Beijing does get a little chilly in the Winter, although it's certainly nothing like the American Midwest.

But last year was an El Nino. I'm not sure how often an El Nino occurs, but the last one I remember was in the summer of 1997, when I was up on Alaska processing fish. That time it messed up the fishing season, which didn't break my heart, because they ended up shutting down the fish processing plant, so I traded the back-aching labor for a job driving a tour bus in Denali National Park.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that last winter was unusually warm. Cockroaches are tropical critters--winter usually kills them off, at least mostly. You see very few of them. But last winter was different. They just never seemed to go away. But the worst of it was that when the weather really started to get warm during the summer, they got particularly bad. It got to the point where, if I poured myself a glass of yogurt, I could hardly turn my head without having one or two of them crawl in and help themselves. I have never seen anything like it. In a way, though, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, because I realized that I had to do something serious. It's not that I had never tried anything before. I guess I had just hesitated to get too aggressive toward creatures that had never done anything to hurt me.

As I said, I had tried several remedies in the past. Like chasing them with a thermos of hot water. It cooks them instantly, and it's much better than spraying poison all over the house. Listen to me. I sound ruthless. What is it that makes an otherwise peaceful person chase harmless creatures with boiling water? I always felt guilty about it, but I didn't want to let them get out of hand, you know. But this past summer, I lost my patience. As I said, I have never seen anything like it. So I had to take action. I did two things. First, I hired a cleaning lady. Actually, my apartment wasn't really that bad before, but, well, it wasn't really that good, either. This lady I have now is pretty good. She really cleans the place up nice. But the cockroaches were really upset. There was nothing for them to eat. They went on strike. They didn't exactly carry picket signs or anything, but I could tell they were very unhappy. So I invited them to a banquet. They all came and feasted on the delicacies I placed before them. And then you know what happened? The miserable creatures all died. And I was glad to see them go.

The traps that I bought at the Walmart Super Store aren't really traps in the strictest sense. They are miniature "forts" with tiny openings the cockroaches can crawl through to feast on the tasty, poisonous morsel contained within. On the box it says that they return to their nests and die. That's false advertising. It's just not true that they all make it back to their homes to die in peace surrounded by their loved ones. No. More than once I saw them writhing in agony in front of me. And many more that I did not see, I had to sweep up off the floor. What unearthly madness would drive a man to such mindless genocide against completely innocent creatures? What is wrong with a world where one person's peace and contentment depends on the death and destruction of a whole population? I will admit such questions gave me pause, but they did not deter me. My apartment is cockroach free.