August- "..."

"..." said Mike, when he first confronted a cockroach in the kitchen.

"..." said the cockroach, who was happily minding its own business, which involved scurrying around and getting on people's nerves. It was rather good at its job.

Mike's home was no where near spotlessly clean since his father, spending the majority of his time either at work, traveling for business, or dating his current girlfriend, had by default left Mike in charge of the well-being of all the domestic matters. Mike wasn't inept, but there were certain things to be said about putting a boy in charge of taking care of a house, and most of them involved the quirking of a few eyebrows.

However, Mike's home didn't have cockroaches.

Mike's great aunt's house was big, with many bedrooms, each complete with its own bathroom, and happened to be the perfect haven for a number of six-footed critters. A certain very LARGE number.

"!" said the cockroach, when confronted by its friend on the kitchen counter in front of Mike.

"!" said its friend. Cockroaches were not noticeably friendly creatures, so after a few shakes of their feelers, the two roaches decided to depart and go their separate ways. They started to.

"...!!!" said Mike, grabbing a piece of paper towel and promptly sending the pair to roach heaven. If such a thing existed. If it did, would there also be a roach hell? This was an interesting thought. Had the roaches that Mike had just met ever sinned? The thought of angelic cockroaches, however, seemed to be too much for one's imagination to bear.

For the sake of whatever's remaining of the reader's sanity, we'll move on.

Mike threw away the paper towel, went to the restroom, and met his third roach in less than five minutes.

"......." went Mike.

"..." went the third roach, who was enjoying itself on the floor tiles.

"EEeeeeeeeeeeeee!" went Mike's great aunt, who had just popped in to see what her 'dear boy' (she'd already started calling him that in her head) was up to and had spotted the living organism touring her bathroom.

Mike was neither a humanitarian nor an animal rights activist, however, even if he were, he would've still petitioned for a bottle of pesticide. He had, after all, already killed something in his quest for food. Killing for food had taken on a new meaning since the days when our ape ancestors screeched over large sticks. Most people considered themselves too civilized to kill for food now, though most still do indirectly kill for food daily in some way. For Mike, living where he lived meaning that he had to kill for food, and, it seemed, sometimes for showers too.

You never thought that roaches could be such clean-freaks. Seriously. Showers?