Another unwanted New York experience

Since the cockroach post seemed to be a hit, I've decided to revisit the topic. I am happy to report there have been no other unwanted visitors in the apartment, so you are safe to come and stay, Michelle. (Though, watch, I will see one tonight now.) I do have a highly amusing tale to tell about work, though.

Rest assured (though, actually, you most likely will not ...), any restaurant you've ever visited, no matter how clean or upscale it was, has a problem with critters. It just happens. Garbage, consisting of lots of food scraps, accumulates. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat are shipped in cardboard boxes (roaches eat cardboard) from exotic locales (where cockroaches are as common as ants). There are many dank, dark places for things to hide. Hundreds of customers come and go daily, tracking in who knows what from their home or their subway jaunt. (As a side note, for this reason, we have instituted a no-shoes rule in the apartment. Roach guts and dog poo stay OUTSIDE.) Restaurants are the playground of insects and rodents; there is no preventing it. You, most likely, have been fortunate enough to not witness this first-hand, as any restaurant with credence will dedicate a substantial part of its budget to pest control. Just because it happens doesn't mean it's ok. The downside of this is that, after a restaurant has been sprayed, the roaches typically come out into the open to die.

Which all leads to the following.

Friday night. I'm working the bar. It's around 9:30 PM. My co-bartender has gone home because we weren't too busy, but, of course, as soon as he leaves, the whole restaurant and my whole bar fills up. It's packed. Every barstool is taken by people eating and enjoying their pricey cocktails. I'm over towards the service end of the bar, asking the manager a question. The palm of my right hand is itchy. I lift my hand and turn it palm-up to scratch it. You know what's coming.

Another giant mutant roach (why do they always have to be HUGE?!) has come out to die. On my palm.

I scream.

And flick my hand so the roach goes flying through the air down the bar.

Somehow, miraculously, it stays inside the bar and lands on the mats where I stand. Also, it's loud enough in the restaurant that only the couple at the very end of the bar even bothered to look up from their conversation.

Still, my manager flips out.

"What are you doing? You can't do that! " he hisses. " Where did it go?"

Shaking like a leaf, I point at the roach now crawling lazily along the bar mat.

"Stop pointing! Now you have to go kill it."

"I can't do it. I can't! Can't you take care of it?" (He is well aware that I am HUGELY afraid of cockroaches.)

"No, Allison. You have to do it."

Dude, you're not my brother. Still, not wanting this to become more of a scene, I know I will have to kill it. I walk over to the waddling object of my nightmares and step on it.

It pops.

I stifle the urge to projectile vomit while jumping up and down and shaking my arms like a crazed chicken.

The majority of humans attract mosquitoes or bees. I attract cockroaches. Lovely.