La cucaracha

One day, just after we had all come back from Gibraltar, mistress was lying in the bath. (I have forgotten to tell you this story so I am telling it now)

Well, she lies in the bath most days to be honest.

But my GibKennelFlat only has a shower so after the hot dusty journey back home, mistress was idling in there.

For some strange reason master was talking to her and I was hiding behind him. I'm pretty wary of the bathroom as I don't see why on earth they both like to jump into a huge plastic bowl of water so I normally keep well away.

Although sometimes in the mornings I stand in the doorway and have a bit of a macho chat with master when he is having a shave or something.

Suddenly she shrieked and dived out of the bath and ran into the bedroom. Frightened the life out of me. I ran even further away.

That left master to deal with the cockroach that had nonchalantly scuttled right round the top edge of the bath. While she was in there.



So he flipped it into the bath. And pointed out to mistress that it didn't seem able to swim. It had drowned. He thought they were bombproof. Master so tries to be a good Buddhist but that wasn't one of those occasions.

"Eeeek!" she shrieked again. Or something like that. "You're not going to get into the bath now are you?"

"Of course I am. No point in wasting water." And promptly climbed in. Mistress was nearly sick.

The year after they first bought our house in Spain, mistress noticed they had a new pet in the bathroom. It was a cute sort of tropical-looking creature. Deep-reddish colour, quiet, and just used to lurk in a corner of the bathroom.

Mistress called it the "Naked Lunch Creature". And then she remembered why she was calling it the Naked Lunch Creature. It reminded her of the film. Set in the Interzone. After that, every time she saw the new pet she screamed.

She was going to walk out of the film when they went to see it. To start with, it was boring and then later, it was off the wall. But they both stuck it out and decided it was a good film. They still talk about it now - hence the name for the new pet (hah!)

WARNING
For any of you who don't know what we're talking about there are some links to follow. The book link is just a photo. Pretty yuk if you don't like cockroaches. If you read about the book you may not wish to view the YouTube video. book cover link here

SECOND WARNING - REPEAT - THIS IS NOT A PRETTY VIDEO
This vid clip is not for the faint-hearted. Mistress thinks it is as disgusting now as she did years ago. Although she did laugh this time when she watched it again. But now she has been to Tanger. video link here

The whole point of this story is that mistress can not look at cockroaches without thinking of Naked Lunch.

And mistress says they are even worse in Australia. When they had their flat in Sydney, the cockies were huge. Master and mistress came in one night and there was a mega-sized one trying to FLY out of the window.

(Another occasion where mistress felt sick).

How do you dogpals in the Americas (ie North, Central and South), and south-east Asia, manage? What are yours like?

Fortunately we don't have many. Because I'm not interested in chasing them. Too small. Cats and rats for me anyday.

Hope I haven't offended anydog or their peeps. But cockroaches are a part of life in hot countries. And I'm a Spanish dog. Mistress is a wimp though. In fact I think I might do a poll. Is mistress a wimp? (Need to get her to do it for me though, sigh).