King Roach

In my work building we share floor space with another company.  While our operations and desks are behind key-card locked doors, the two companies share restrooms and hall space.  The people who work for the other company always strike me as kind of grubby.  Maybe it’s the lax dress code, or maybe its something else that I am unaware of.  Regardless, they arouse my suspicions.

The first time I spotted a dead roach in the bathroom it startled the heck out of me.  I did that whole thing where my eyes widened, my muscles tensed, and I damn near cut off my urine stream.  That dead roach was just laying there to the left of the urinal, partially under the one sit down stall.  It was on it’s back with it’s large, obtuse antennae sticking out and it’s furry looking legs curled in towards it’s belly in rigor mortis.  That is absolutely the last thing ANYONE wants to see in a bathroom let alone a workplace.  I left feeling disgusted and itchy, reflexively speaking. 

My second roach encounter was the following week.  The little bastard scampered across my path in the shared hallway and went right underneath the other company’s door.  That crossed my personal line.  I felt I had no choice but to contact the building management and send them a strongly worded email.  With all of these companies in this building paying rent, surely they could send in an exterminator.  Right?  Tell me that is not a totally sensible way to handle a cockroach problem. 

The management company didn’t respond to my email, but I did not see another roach for a little while so I told myself that maybe they had someone come in to spray over the weekend or something. 

***---***

Water is a beautiful thing.  Cold water at work keeps me hydrated, focused, and the clean 1.5 L Fiji water bottle I keep on my desk with the flower and plants on the label always gives me some peace of mind.  It’s only natural that I tend to get up to pee every couple of hours.  It’s good for a leg stretch and it let’s me cut long meetings short.  The shared bathroom, however, is a vile place. The dim lights, urine stains, some unidentified liquid perpetually sitting on the ugly gray floor, the suspicious smears on the walls, and the gaping hole in the wall of the only number two stall make this a place to avoid unless desperate AND short on time. 

It was during a nice ‘relief session’ in this vile bathroom that someone entered the restroom.  I casually glanced over as a Hispanic guy from the other company walked up to the vacant urinal on my right when he exclaimed, “OH SHIT!!” Startled, I looked to where he was pointing at the corner of the wall by the urinal and there was a massive, live roach.  This, friends, was an enormous freaking bug.  It’s body was easily three inches long - and I would testify to that in front of a Grand Jury.  The still longer antennae were feeling about all over and it’s hairy legs were sticking out from it’s sides.

I was momentarily paralyzed, amid a powerful stream, coping with the enormity of the insect to my right when the Hispanic guy called out, “Shit man, there’s one there too!!”  Looking over my left shoulder now, following where he was pointing, I spotted a dead roach on it’s back, equally as large as the first.  “Oh JESUS!” I exclaimed, “Shit!!”  Now I was looking all around me. Up to the ceiling, down to the floor, back to the live one near the stall on my right, and up, down, and around again.  My eyes tried to be everywhere at once. 

“Man, what the HELL is going on here?” I said to the Hispanic guy, all the while looking for any more roaches that might be crawling, jumping, or flying my way. 

“Sheet man, I don’ know, but this is gross, man!”

“Yeah, dude,” I said, “this is NOT ok.  These guys just showed up a couple of weeks ago! Now they’re all over the place!”

“You know man,” the Hispanic guy started, “now that you say that, some new guy started a couple of weeks ago.  He kind of smells and is kind of gross, man. I’ve had to train him once and he stinks! No me gusta, man!  He’s always wearing really baggy cloths and like a sweater and a scarf.  I don’ want to sound mean or anything, but I feel like he is bringing in the cucarachas.”

“Nah man, it’s probably a building thing.” I had finished peeing by this time and was washing my hands, while the Hispanic guy took my place at the urinal furthest away from the giant, shiny roach in the corner.

No sooner had I spoken than the very guy my Hispanic friend had just finished describing opened the door.  First hand I was able to see exactly why the Hispanic guy could think it was a person causing this roach infestation.  My nose and my eyes were immediately fed some powerful sensory information causing my brain to recoil in my skull and give me a dull headache.  In addition to the subtle, sharp, pungent odor given off by this individual, his hair was a long and tangled mess partially covering his wide, greasy face. His brown collared shirt had an odd sheen to it. Over his shirt he wore a baggy brown cardigan. The brown slacks he wore were long and baggy and appeared to have grease on them as well. His matching brown shoes were shiny, but looked to be in dire disrepair. Quickly getting a hold of myself, I gave him a courteous nod and got the hell out of there as quickly as my long legs would allow.  The whole time I was wondering about the weird back story that must have happened to get this dude hired at that company.  Who hires someone so gross?  Were they that desperate or were they forced to give him a job for some reason?

When I got back to my desk I sent a message to my manager alerting him of this roach problem and advising that he refrain from using that bathroom for the remainder of the day.  And to demand that the building service do something about the gross roach infestation.  Nobody wants to unzip with a three inch mammoth insect in the vicinity of their most vulnerable area. 

A couple roach free workplace days went by.  I was using another bathroom on the first floor (our offices were on the third) and enjoying the slight upgrade of conditions.  I didn’t run into any of the usual people I saw so I generally assumed that they were more brave than I and just dealing with the seemingly persistent roach situation, or found a bathroom elsewhere that suited them.  Everything was fine until I felt - and heard - a rumble in my stomach while I was on a conference call.  You know the rumble.  It’s the same one that precedes that awful feeling of an impending shit one micrometer from your sphincter.  Of course it happens when I’m on a conference call and have no chance of making to the “Safe Haven Shitter” (and assumed roach free bathroom).  Another rumble struck with urgency sweat starting to break out on my brow.  I considered putting my headset on mute and just taking it into the ‘Roach Motel’ bathroom, but then, dear reader, you know I was asked a question on that conference call.  The response was quick, but doubt was raised.  And there was no way I could take the headset in there without muting/unmuting it, and that could only be done from the stationary phone set.  So I squeezed my ass cheeks shut and sweated out the rest of the call. 

The call only lasted about four minutes longer, but it was the most agonizing four minutes I’ve had in years.  When it was finished I bolted up from my desk and did the “don’t let your ass cheeks separate or you lose” run to the nearest bathroom, that just happened to be infested with massive cockroaches. 

I kicked open the door to the only sit-down stall in the bathroom and came face to face with the most horrible thing that I could have possibly seen at that point.  It was that grimy, gross guy from the other day sitting on the toilet stuffing his face with roaches out of a large brown paper bag.  Our eyes met and we froze, both confronted with abject horror. Our eye contact was unbroken. Frozen fear staring at frozen fear. My stomach rumbled again breaking the silence and I took initiative. “MOVE!!” I bellowed with a thumb jerk.  Roach Guy jumped to his feet, spilling a dead roach in the process, and vacated the stall with speed unmatched. 

I yanked a sanitary seat cover out of the dispenser and hurriedly placed it on the seat before dropping down and allowing my ass to explode as a wave of relief washed over me.  It was only then that I was allowed to process the wildly insane and disgusting thing that I had just seen, moments before.  I looked at the dead roach on the ground off to my right and I shuddered.  Mixing with the stench that I was creating I could smell the pungent odor lingering from Roach Guy.  I gagged.  I lifted my undershirt over my nose.  That didn’t help.  I grabbed at the toilet paper and began wiping quickly. I gotta get out of here or I’m going to vomit, I thought to myself.  I gagged again.  NOO. Not here. Not now.  I continued to wipe in a frenzy. Think of something else.  Wipe Wipe Wipe. Dammit, when is this going to get clean? Gag.  Ok, think of fresh cotton breeze. Yeah, think of Fabreeze. It then occurred to me that Fabreeze mixed with Roach Guy odor and shit would only be more fowl.  I wretched but managed for the moment to keep my breakfast down.  I wiped once more. Fuck it.  Close enough.  I stood up and let the motion sensor do the rest.  After buckling my belt I stepped forward and heard a CRUNCH.  Oooohhhh Noooooooooo….. KEEP MOVING, I told myself.  Move I did.  I made it to the sink, washed my hands and bolted out the door gasping for air. 

I walked around for a bit, continuously dragging my shoe on the carpet in an effort to clean roach guts from the bottom of it. Fresh air sounded like a good idea so I decided to go for a walk outside.  Heading out the front door I went for a short walk by the Chicago River.  The thought that kept racing through my head was, What do I do??  Clearly this individual has some major psychological problems.  What kind of person hides in the bathroom eating dead cockroaches out of a paper bag? He doesn’t work for my company so what recourse do I have?  Is his job the only thing keeping him from completely disintegrating mentally? 

After returning to my office I felt it prudent to alert my boss to this.  We have a pretty good relationship and he took this news surprisingly well, but told me exactly what I expected him to say: that there’s really nothing he could do because this guy didn’t work for our company.  Ultimately I did feel better that at least I got this off my chest. 

That night I had some really messed up dreams all involving cockroaches.  One was a giant, 8 foot tall roach standing on it’s hind legs coming for me and breathing fire as I tried to run away. These dreams did not make me happy.  Not cool, Dreams, not cool. 

The next day at work I noticed that the lights in the shared hallway were dim.  I also didn’t see anyone from the other company the entire day, granted I was still avoiding the shared bathroom, but still...  Usually there are more than a few of them who hang out in a breakroom just off the shared hallway during lunch, but I didn’t see anyone at all in there when I went for a walk around noon.  Maybe they have some all day training or something, I thought to myself. 

That was on a Friday.  I had a nice weekend, went to the beach, had drinks with friends, and tried not to think about giant roaches.  I was still disgusted from my episode with the Roach Guy in the bathroom.  But...a little booze and some R&R on the weekend helps the brain process bizarre stuff like that. 

Monday rolled around and once again, I didn’t see anyone from the other office.  At about 2pm, I went down to the main level to get a cup of tea from a little stand that sells hot drinks and sandwiches.  While down there I asked the building security guys at the adjacent kiosk about the company on the other side of my floor.

“I work for Such-and-Such Company on the third floor and we share a hallway with Company B [Names redacted so as not to throw anybody under the bus].  I haven’t seen anyone from Company B in a couple of days.  Did they relocate?  What’s going on with them?”

“Nah, man,” replied the security officer, “they still there.  But you know, come to think of it, I haven’t really seen anybody from Company B in a couple of days neither.  Maybe they on training or somethin’.”

After thanking the security guard I made my way back up to my office.  I was walking down that shared hallway, coming to the end where my door is, when I noticed a *CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK* sound coming from behind Company B’s door.  “Oh no.  No no no no no no no!” I said aloud to myself.  I looked at the door.  It wasn’t just one thing clicking.  It was a lot of things clicking all at once.  Then I saw something moving underneath the space between the door and the floor.  “OH Jesus Christ,” I recall saying out loud.  A large, flat, brown head of a cockroach was wiggling underneath the door trying to get out, but it was too large and fat to make it under the door space. 

“Oh fuck!” I badged my way into my office and ran to my desk.  I called down to the security station and told Delvin that we have a major situation.

“Hey Delvin, this is Rob from Such-and-Such. Look man, we have a situation up here.  There are giant, fat cockroaches trying to squeeze out from under Company B’s door!  I can hear hundreds of them crawling around THROUGH THE DOOR! You gotta get somebody up here! Pardon my French, Delvin, but this shit is FUCKED!”

“Ok, man, I hear you. I’ll get somebody up there now and holla at the exterminator,” he said.

“Look man, if there’s anybody alive in that office, they are fighting against the roaches and they’re losing. You might want to call an ambulance or something.  I’ve never seen or heard anything like this before!” My voice and my hands were shaking. 

“Alright man, I got you.  I’ll get on the horn and do what I can.”

With that we hung up. 

My company’s half of floor is mostly empty.  It has cubicles, but most are empty.  Many are for the sales staff who, if they’re doing their job well, are usually on the road meeting with clients and will only stop in from time to time. Then there’s IT who live it up, mostly working from home.  Lucky bastards. Regardless, there are a few people who regularly work on the floor.  I’m telling you this because it crossed my mind to say, “Hey!! Company B is infested with cockroaches and they’re trying to get out! Run for your lives!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!” But then I thought about how that would look in the future.  After this infestation is handled by evacuating the building of people and using a laser guided missile strike followed by a napalm bomb, how am I going to come across to my co-workers?  Would I be a laughing stock?  Am I making too big of a deal about this?  I didn’t know, so I just took action to quietly and calmly remove myself from the situation.  Afterall, I did do my part to alert the proper authorities that Company B was now a full time roach nest.  However they decide to handle that is up to them. 

I sent an instant message to my boss, who was on the road and telecommuting in, telling him that I was feeling ill and wanted to finish the day off working from home.  After receiving approval, I saved the stuff that I was working on and shut down my laptop.  I gathered my things, took a last slug off my 1.5 L water bottle, and started heading out.  Reaching the door I heard a radio crackling on the other side. OK, great, I thought, they have someone here sorting this shit out.  Good things. I turned the handle and opened the door to the shared hallway. 

***---***

Stepping into the hallway I saw two security personnel talking and looking at the closed door to Company B.  The clicking sounds were clearly audible through the door.  I paused mid stride to see what was going to happen.  They both stopped talking and looked at me.  It seems that Delvin was on desk duty and probably wanted to nothing to do with this situation.

“You guys might want to put on bug suits and get some Raid! or something for this mission.  I don’t think those guns are going to be much help,” I said to them. 

“Do you know what’s going on in there?” one of them asked.

“No and I don’t want to find out.  I saw one of the employees eating a bag of dead roaches in the bathroom last week and I want absolutely nothing to do with Company B,” I responded.

“Oh man! Did you say you saw a guy eating a bag of dead roaches? Gross man!” the other security guard expressed with a look of disgust.  He reached for his radio and made a call.  “Hey, it’s Ruiz.  Can we get some back-up here?  This situation is out of hand and we need some assistance.”

“Hey Ruiz, we don’t have any other personnel freed up right now.  Try and handle it and we’ll get you someone as soon as we can,” the voice over the radio crackled back.

“Ah shit man, it looks like it’s just us,” said the first guard, “How bad can it be? If it’s just bugs, we’ll close the door right away and wait for an exterminator.”

It was like watching a train wreck.  I wanted to see what would happen when that door opened, but at the same time, I was repulsed and disgusted and didn’t want to stick around.  Slowly I started edging my way away from the door and the security guards.  I remember Ruiz saying, “Thanks man,” while turning his attention to the door.  Both guards pulled their guns and pepper spray out.  I’m not sure how the guns would help, but maybe the pepper spray would have an effect…? Maybe? Roaches don’t really have noses or sensitive tissue or complex nervous systems.  But they have eyes...so…. 

I continued backing away.  I lost sight of the two guards around the shallow corner of the hallway that led to the door and was left hearing just their sounds.  I heard the beep of their key-card on the RFID lock.  The door handle made an audible metal click when depressed.  I took a couple steps back. The door creaked open and I heard Ruiz shout, “OH FUCK!!!” followed by lots of clicking.  A shot went off and made my ears ring.  Another shot went off and the ringing was louder, but so was the CLICK CLICK CLICK of the insects.  I saw large roaches start streaming into the hallway by the thousands. They were on the floor and the walls and the smell was nearly overpowering on it’s own.  I started running for the exit door.  I opened it and turned around to slam it closed just as I saw a GIANT fat roach scuttling down the hallway.  The thing was so wide that it’s sides were touching both walls. It was probably about three and a half feet tall while crawling, and it turned the corner heading for the door.  I slammed that door so hard the noise sounded like another gunshot.  I took a moment to hurl the two waiting chairs and the coffee table in front of the door.  The King Roach slammed into the door, but the solid wood door held fast.  I raced into the hall and down the escalators.  A couple of people were just standing on the escalator stairs as I shoved past them.  They shouted annoyed “Hey!’s” at me, but I paid no attention.  They knew not what followed me back there and if they did, they would do the same. 

After deciding to forgo the el train in favor of a cab, I was finally able to catch my breath.  When I got home I didn’t want to do any work.  I vegged out with some tv shows to try and take my mind off of the day’s events, but my brain kept jumping back to that giant king roach.  Was that Roach Guy from the bathroom?  If it was, God, that’s a horrible fate.  What happened to Ruiz and his buddy?  Should I have warned them more?  Tried harder to get them to not open the door? Am I responsible for their demise?  That thought made me sick to my stomach.  What happened to my co-workers on the floor? Should I have warned them? 

That last thought was almost too much for me to handle. I ran to the bathroom and almost heaved.  When everything stayed down after a few minutes, I slowly walked back to the couch.  Maybe they’re still there. If they are I can warn them.  They probably heard the gunshots and are hiding under the desk or maybe they called the cops.  I’ll send them an instant message, I thought.  I grabbed my bag and opened it up.  Without warning a roach crawled out on my hand and bit me before crawling up my arm.  I screamed and shook the bastard off my arm.  I lunged for the little fucker with my foot and squished him good.  Serves him right.  I took my work bag out on to my balcony, which was a nice 26 floors up.  I pulled out my laptop and some papers before hanging my bag over the edge of the balcony and shaking it violently.  Nothing else came out.  I checked everything thoroughly, but as far as I could tell there was only one stupid roach and his guts were smeared on the floor.  Just to be safe I went out and got a Roach Motel at the hardware store and set them up in my apartment. 

For the next few days I worked from home.  There was some chatter about a ‘disturbance’ at the Chicago office and that ‘everyone had to work from home to test our business resiliency capabilities’ for a few days.  I was fine with that.  It was relaxing.  But I found myself oddly hungry.  I was craving something. Something brown and crunchy and fast moving….