I've had some rude awakenings before. My alarm has gone off before I thought possible to get me up for school the first day back after summer break, I've had people apparently not believe me when I tell them they're dialed the same wrong number for the third time, and even just last month I woke up to my toilet overflowing. That was a fun morning, frantic calls to maintenance, covering the floor with towels, trying to reassure the Kitten that she could still reach her litter box.
I would take a month of mornings like that rather than the way I woke up today. Possibly more. Really, if I could trade, however many were needed, I'd do it. I would enjoy my toilet overflowing every day if I meant I never had to wake up the way I did this morning ever, ever again, ever.
It started off innocuously enough. Boyfriend's alarm went off ridiculously early, as it does, and he got up and did his thing. Kitten crept up next to me and snuggled into the curve of my arm, and I pet her without really waking up. I was warm and comfortable, the Kitten was soft and sleepy, and I had at least 45 min before I really had to wake up. Boyfriend came along to kiss me goodbye, and the Kitten moved out of the way, then jumped over me to the other side of the bed.
Then.
Then the horror began.
Boyfriend flipped the covers off of me and said, "Come here, right now." I could tell by his face he was serious, so I climbed out of bed and asked "What? Why? What's wrong?" "There's a huge bug," he said, and I grabbed for my glasses because everything was a blur. The Kitten was on the bed looking up at the wall over the bed, directly over my head where I had just been sleeping, and it was not a bug, I wish it was a bug, I was prepared for a spider, maybe some sort of weird stink bug like we get here, a pincher bug, anything but what I saw, because I saw on my wall of my BEDROOM where I SLEEP all the TIME oh god i can't even type it a giant gigantic full grown hideous freak of nature COCKROACH CRAWLING up my wall not two feet from my pillow and oh god it was huge, I think it could have taken the Kitten back to its dank sordid lair and it was in my BEDROOM, which I may have mentioned that I had just been SLEEPING in.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god
Words cannot describe my terror and loathing of those foul things whose name I can't even type again. Boyfriend grabbed a tissue and went for it, and I left the room before I began shrieking in fear and outrage. He came back holding a pillow, yes it was that big that he apparently needed a pillowcase to restrain it, and asked me something, I'm not sure what, but it seemed the thing was INSIDE the pillowcase, so I pointed at the bathroom and managed somehow to convey that he must flush it down the toilet immediately, I don't think I was speaking English at this point but he seemed to understand, so he went in the bathroom and closed the doors and somehow wrestled the minion of hell into the toilet and flushed it away. It took a few minutes, it apparently was putting up a good fight, oh god, and then he came back and in the same hysterical language I told him he had to burn the pillow immediately, and possibly the toilet and my bedroom as well, but I don't think he understood that. I managed to mime that he had to put the pillowcase in the washer, the only reason I didn't throw it away immediately is that my mother made it for me, but I may have to wash it a few hundred times before I can use it again, and made him wash his hands a few times. Then I collapsed against him and sobbed in terror and horror for a while.
I was petrified that there may be more of these disgusting creatures, some sort of dark foul legion of them underneath my bed, maybe inside my mattress! Or behind the wallhanging my mom gave me! Or underneath my pillow oh god oh god. I hid in the living room with lots of clear space around me so I could see if any more spawns of satan were trying to sneak up on me and the best Boyfriend in the world took my bed apart and searched it for monsters.
It was clean, but I may be sleeping on the couch for a while. And people wonder why I'm not a morning person.
