So, I steam cleaned my tile floors today. That's the biggest advantage of being underemployed - my floors are cleaner than they have ever been. I use my Shark Steam Mop (I love it, and would give it a shameless plug, but couldn't they put a quick release on the cord holder? I love the long cord, I just hate having to wrap it all up again when I'm done).
Anyway...
I steam cleaned my floors today and as I was just about to start doing that, I spotted a big cockroach-type bug (it's Florida - it could be any one of a gazillion different critters, but for now it was a cockroachy looking kind of bug) looking dazed and confused, on the living room carpet right next to the entryway. I am a card-carrying manly man, having rescued many a fair damsel from spiders, mice, lizards and the odd seagull or two, but even I will not engage a cockroach mano-a-mano. No, I will not argue with five million years of evolution and my tool-creating forebearers just so I can look all macho squashing a bug with my bare hands. Instead, I will whack them with whatever is to hand - shoes, rolled up newspapers, hammers, my daughter's boyfriends - as I make my small contribution to continued human dominance of this planet over the cockroachy-type hordes.
So what did I have to hand? Well, my handy steam mop. Without even thinking, I walloped the steam mop down on top of that bug faster than Lindsay Lohan can get arrested. I then stood there, wondering what to do next, when I realized that I was holding a steam mop. Sometimes, it takes me a while - I can't be brilliant all the time. So I really pumped up the steam. For five minutes I pumped up enough steam to make any locomotive proud. When I felt that I had done enough, I lifted the mop only to see the bug STILL MOVING. That's right, five minutes of intense steaming was not enough to render this super roach lifeless. So I walloped the steam mop back down and set to work again.
I kept that steam going and going and going until a bunch of Swedes showed up at my door carrying towels. Probably fifteen minutes later, I tried again to see if that bug was gone to meet its maker. It laid on its back, its little legs folded in front of it like it was praying. I might have felt a little remorse, just a little sorry for the poor bugger, but in this battle for the planet, it's them or us. This time, it was one of them. Next time, mankind may not be so lucky...
But now I keep having this strange thought going through my head. It probably comes from watching too much Travel Channel, but I'm wondering what Andrew Zimmerman is doing for dinner tonight?
