Honolulu Lite
They say that March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. Except in Hawaii, where it came in like a disgruntled gecko and left like a confused cockroach, literally. It was a big roach, a creature with wings like tennis racquets. Spring officially begins in March with the vernal equinox. But in the islands it springs into action with the vernal equi-roach, soon to be followed by vernal equi-flying termites and vernal equi-toads. This time of year,
bugs spring to lifeThe first roach of spring, an enormous 747 turbo-charged specimen, made the mistake of entering the kitchen just as my wife was closing up for the night. She came to bed and said a bit nonchalantly, "Big cockroach in the kitchen. I took care of it."
This was odd, seeing as how I'm the official cockroach dispatcher of the household (by appointment, not by choice). Although she was born in Hawaii and has encountered many roaches in her lifetime, my wife greets each beast with a shriek that will strip chrome off a bumper. So I was suspicious that she had dealt with this bug without so much as a small, heart-stopping yell of terror.
"You took care of it?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said. "I sprayed him."
She hates bug sprays.
"You sprayed him?" I asked.
"Yep," she said.
"With Raid?" I pressed.
"No," she said. "With 409."Ah. Now I got the picture. Lacking the fortitude to smoosh him with a slipper or gas him with poison, she had merely spritzed him with counter cleaner.
I went to the kitchen to finish the job. I found the roach sitting in a puddle of 409, alive but confused and, apparently, clean. I grabbed a large can of bug spay out of a closet, gave the intruder a generous shellacking, then sprayed around the baseboards and doorways in case his mates attempted to mount a rescue.
I went back to bed proud of having done my manly duty because, let's face it, hunting and killing large game is man work.
I was not so cocky the next morning after almost breaking my neck walking into the kitchen.
"Man, that Raid is slippery," I said after my feet slid out from under me.
Then I noticed the large can of bug spray I had employed actually was a large can of WD-40, a super lubricant used to unstick locks and sliding glass doors. Michelle Kwan would have had trouble walking across that kitchen floor.
I checked on the roach, which was definitely dead. I don't know if it drowned in 409 and WD-40 or died of embarrassment. But the end had come so quickly that he had not even had time to assume the Official Dead Roach Position (on back, legs in air).
So that was March, no lions or lambs to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if April comes in like a mongoose and leaves like a mynah bird -- soggy ones, if my wife gets them with the 409.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com