Is that cockroach on the inside or outside of my mosquito net?

How many times in one’s life do they think to themselves, “Is that cockroach on the inside or outside of my mosquito net?”. The answer is 2. And the other answer is inside. Both times. Two nights in a row.

This story deserves an entire blog post dedicated to it because it has played an integral role in a very hard lesson learned that I will carry with me for the next two years: ALWAYS TUCK IN YOUR MOSQUITO NET! Alright, back to the scene of the crime.

It’s 5 in the morning and I feel something nibbling at my finger. I specifically remember in my delirious state wondering why I had “ants” in my bed. I shook off my hand and rolled over and went back to sleep (another lesson, if you feel something on you, wake up!). I didn’t fully fall back asleep yet and then felt something crawling all over me. At this moment I immediately snapped out of it and grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight. It’s an unexplainable feeling when you confirm the suspicion and see the massive cockroach that was just having a field day walking all over you.

Here is a picture of the finger it was on.  You may not be able to see it, but yes, that pink spot on my middle finger is a bona-fide cockroach nibble mark. When I turned it to the side I could see a very visible indent of how much of my finger it….ate.

I promise I’m not exaggerating when I say I sat there with that cockroach motionless for about half an hour, both of us afraid to move, having a stare-off. I had nothing in my bed to kill it with and didn’t want to lose sight of it either, but then the flashlight on my phone went off and I was in darkness with it. Scrambled out of bed and turned on the light and there was a cockroach on the floor. Threw on some shoes and killed it and felt relieved. The thought crossed my mind that it had gotten on the floor pretty quick but I figured I was over thinking it because I had been living here a couple weeks and never saw a cockroach in the house before. Just in case, I pulled out my mattress and checked everywhere and there was no sign of anything else.

Didn’t fall back asleep after that so I looked really tired the next day and tried to completely forget about the incident, especially when I got into bed the next night. I spent some time tucking in my mosquito net alllllll the way around. Pulled the mattress out again and everything, re-tucking in every single side. Right as I was trying to rid my mind of it, and convincing myself I did an amazing job with the net and that nothing could get through it…I look up and see another cockroach above my head of the inside of the net. I actually just laid there and laughed for a good minute before I slowly got up to grab a shoe. Thankfully, I knocked it down and killed it quickly.

After the ordeal was over, I went back to bed and laughed some more realizing what happened. The cockroach I had just killed was really the one from the night before, it had just hid somewhere in the bed after the light on my phone went off, and the cockroach I killed on the floor just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The best part is all the time I spent in my bed afterwards thinking I had taken care of it when I really didn’t. What a lucky cockroach, it just gets discovered and is about to die but then another one shows up and takes all the blame while it hides away for a bit longer. Ha. It’s all part of the experience, right?