TIFU (We FU) by thinking 2 grown men could handle a roach

TL/DR – 2 gay best friends try to handle a roach. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well

Like most of the US, me (44m) and my best friend/occasional roommate (36m) were suffering in this heat wave – based in Charlotte where it felt like a sweltering 98 degrees outside, meaning a very crisp and cool 85 degrees inside. We were both sweating and hangry/hungry after a massive grocery run, randomly chatting about boys and bubblegum – and then I saw it. A huge cockroach. One of the fucking big ass ones with wings. Just… scaling the wall. Right above the sink. Right in front of my friend who I know does not deal with bugs larger than a small fly well.

To prepare for the visuals of this story – I am, as I said 44, I am 6’3 250 lbs italian and polish, imagine tim allens gay best friend on that show but with less fashion sense and a cuter face. Final fantasy bearded bear meets tax accountant. My best friend is 5’8, 170 svelte sexy puerto rican with the ability to rock your jimmy choos with a custom memoirs of a geisha outfit one day, and do the street gang thug the next, to conservative italian business suit race driver with a penchant for leather the next. So we begin.

I pulled my friend out of harms way and the madness started as soon as he howled and began jumping around. I hate these things with such a passion and have killed my share of crawlies with a big firm swat of a shoe. Sadly I was only in socks at the time, so I said “Give me your sneaker,” and without us taking our eyes off this fucking thing, he pulled off his sneaker and gave it to me. As I began to position myself for the angle – he squeal/gasped/grunted that he *just* bought these sneakers and snatched it out of my hand, and went for a broom instead. A broom. We were already failing. All this would do is guide it somewhere and it would end up on our faces or something.

He tries to knock it down, but instead just scares it into disappearing behind the counter. Cue gay panic. We start moving small appliances with the stick of the broom like we’re poking bushes for poisonous berries: toaster, air fryer, chicken little decorative frame and with mounted fear that this thing is going to just jump on us from behind, we go to the last little frame, and then I start to realize that we dont really have a plan post discovering it.

Then BAM. It sprints out from behind a decorative chintz painting and full chaos breaks loose. My friend swings again with the pole side, naturally he misses, knocks over a box of gluten-free crackers (no real loss there, those things are an abomination) and the plate of chicken he was seasoning (sad face x 1000). The roach dives into the (thankfully empty) sink. I see my moment.

I turn on the faucet.

Cold water’s running and I’m like, “That’s right. That’s what you get.” Until I realize all Im doing is making it wet. It’s waaaaaay too big for the drain. It’s not dying. It’s….enduring? and I am basically waterboarding it. And this thing is just …..taking itLike it’s trained for this. My friend shouts “MAKE IT HOTTER!” like this is interrogation. So I crank the hot water without thinking.

For a second it stops moving, and I let up. Mistake. Huge mistake. It starts crawling back up the drain like it just took a quick breather. This thing had the energy of someone who’s been through worse. It had been trained, it was ready to fight.

Now begins the war crimes portion of the story. My friend starts randomly pouring allll of his cleaning products into the sink and now we have this horrible mix of dish soap, lavender spray, and a very alive, extremely pissed (and nice smelling) cockroach swimming in it. We are literally torturing this thing with pleasant-smelling chemicals while waterboarding it with scalding water. What have we become?

I try to hold it down with water again and ask him to get anything to end this. We have tools and sharp things and heavy things – I can hold it with the water pressure and then put all of us out of our collective misery – And this lovely wonderful man comes back… with a cheese spreader. Not a knife. Not even a butterknife. A soft, bladeless utensil designed for brie and cream cheese smear. And he starts trying to poke it into the drain.

He starts war screaming – I am laugh howling in misery and the roach is still fucking swimming. He starts smashing it with the flat side, but between the water and the soap, it’s like hitting someone with a plank at the bottom of a pool. Nothing’s working.

And then at the exact same time we both say it:

“Shit. He looks PISSED.”

Eventually, after what felt like a joint moral failure, he manages to bash it in just the right angle or emotional pressure point, and it disappears down the drain. But right before it’s gone one of its legs (or antennae or something) reached up out of the drain. Like a final fucking curse or warning and we eventually stuff the drain with a dishtowel. Just in case.

We just stood there, soaked in sweat and trauma, chicken ruined, crackers dead, sink full of frothy torture and citrus-scented cleanser. And we knew. That thing will come back.

And it will find the cheese knife.