I am terrified of cockroaches. It doesn’t matter if they’re just an image, behind a glass enclosure, or completely imaginary. I will freak out over them. TBE finds this terribly funny. He’ll point over to a pine cone at night and tell me to watch for the cockroach or tell me there’s one on my back and giggle as I whimper. That’s love, I tell you. With that in mind, here goes the dream:

TBE invited me to go to Winnipeg to meet friends, family and to be his plus one at the wedding of the girl he once made the pact “When we’re 30, if neither of us are married…” and at which he didn’t want to be seen alone. You get the drill, I’m sure.

Somehow, flights to Canada in the dream get their own TSA line and don’t require a passport unless you’re American. My passport to go to Canada happened to mention that I was adopted. I later find out that all the Canadians know each other and that all the non-Canadians on the flight are adopted. It was a chatty flight.

We never actually landed at the airport. I just ended up sitting in a room that looked like the Moose Lodge from the Red Green show and TBE‘s apartment. His family started with polite “Who are you and why are you dating our son?” type of conversation when The Nephew, Eh? came up to me holding out his hand to show me something that two-year-olds find super exciting.

IT. WAS. A. COCKROACH. With rising terror, I attempted to redirect The Nephew, Eh? by saying, “Oh, that’s nice. How about you play with that outside? Like Two blocks away… further if your mother will let you.” (I’m a gem and tell two year olds to go away.)

TBE‘s family chuckled at me, commenting, “She’s frightened of a tiny cockroach but not our son!” and TBE just laughed and said, “I know, right?” while scratching the top of my head. I turned to look at him and laugh good-naturedly but I find out that a huge cockroach with TBE‘s body as a suit was nibbling the top of my head with his giant cockroach mouth parts!

I screamed a tiny squeak and turned to see the rest of his family had unzipped their heads and were really gigantic cockroaches with human suits, too! Being the quick-witted person I’m not, I raced bacck to the laundry area, grabbed the convenient can of Raid, and sprayed the cockroach that had apparently eaten my boyfriend.

I bolted out the door while vowing to avenge TBE by exterminating all the cockraoch people one by one since clearly, they murderedTBE and were wearing him as a hand-me-down suit. I was also quite upset that I was such a negligent girlfriend and hadn’t noticed he’d died. I mean, what kind of girlfriend doesn’t notice their boyfriend is suddenly a walking cockroach-zombie? Me, I thought.

Ten running paces later, I ended up in Seattle. (Winnipeg is obviously the size of the rest of Canada that Vancouver  and Toronto don’t take up. Duh. Everyone knows this.) Safe, at my apartment, I squealed and cried to The Roomie about cockroaches living in human suits. She didn’t console me. She instead told me, “Well, duh, Annie. What did you expect from dating a Canadian? They’re all cockroach-people! Oh wait, you’re adopted, huh. Adopted people aren’t full citizens and have to miss that class. It’s how all the other countries allow live bait to go to Canada. It’s why nobody wars with them. You were dating a cockroach-in-a-human-suit the entire time. It was my patriotic duty to not step in if you chose to visit Canada with him.”

“Oh, poop.”

President Obama then showed up at my apartment and told me that by killing TBE I started a war with Canada and would I please be a dear and go back to Canada to let his family punish me however they wish?

“OH GAWD NOES!”

Obama then explained to me that the world had an agreement with Canada:

  1. Canada does as it feels like in its political borders so long as non-adopted people aren’t hurt
  2. Adopted people in any country are not taught about Canada. If they go to Canada and get eaten or whatever, it’s sad, but not illegal. This is to ensure that Canada gets some live bait to eat but not a huge portion of the various populations.
  3. When you die and get buried in a casket, it doesn’t end there. The casket is really a refridgerated chamber that moves in the underground tunnels to Canada where the cockroach people get new suits as they grow. Those who are cremated are really sent via plain shuttle and their families are given urns filled with cigarette ash.
  4. If I didn’t give myself up, the world would be at war with cockroaches and everyone knows that cockroaches are the only thing on the planet that don’t get completely wiped out.

I still refused. Obama, himself, bound me up and chucked me right into TBE‘s family’s back yard. The family proceeded to tell me that I killed a great cockroach but he would live on through his babies. I thoguth, “Great. Not only did he fail to tell me he was a cockroach but he’s also an irresponsible daddy?!” Oh, no. They meant that I would be an unwed, single mother and proceeded to stab my belly with TBE‘s dead cockroach-y butt. Once they were sure I was properly inseminated they told me I could go back to the states and that the war wouldn’t happen. I blinked and was instantly transported back to Seattle.

Being freaked out that my cockroach babies were going to eat me alive, I went to my childhood doctor and asked him what to do. He said, “Well Annie, talk to me in a week and we’ll get them out by C-section. They just need to nibble human flesh a bit longer and then they’ll still turn into cockroach people. There’s no need for you to die.” I fretted for a week and ended up on the surgeon’s table. He had just started to cut me open when I awoke to find Mr. Darcy (The Roomie’s cat) scratching at my belly. Mr Darcy is prone to gnawing just above my ponytails and pouncing on my stomach. Thank you, kitty.

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