After reading this very funny story from our own SPC nobody special (Link ), who got the idea after reading this very funny story from our own hunter of lobsters (Link ) (which are really just "cockroaches of the sea" anyway, but I digress), I thought I'd relay one of my own slum stories.

After moving out of an air conditioned slum in one part of town (air conditioned because of a 2 inch crack in the corner of the kitchen), which, despite being a slum, had no backed up sewage pipe because the pipe was busted open and the sewage ran out on the basement floor, I found what appeared to be the ideal apartment. Situated above a garage, it was a small but attractive one bedroom flat that had been newly decorated.

But, for all its amenities, I found myself sharing space with more  than a fair number of six legged critters.

I arose one morning to go get some cereal and found a roach the size of my thumb perched atop the stove devouring some week old cold pizza. As I reached for my flyswatter, it flew.

That's right, for you yankees, it FLEW. Some roaches of the southland have more than vestigal wings.

Seeing the graceful cockroach in flight did not endear me to it, but it did cause me to reconsider my choice of weapon. Not knowing the abilities of a flighted roach, I did not want to rick it flying off before the swatter could land on it and crush it to bits.

That's when I swatted the Lysol.

Now, my first instinct was to blowtorch the critter, but as he was currently perched on drapes of suspect flammability, I thought better of it. I didn't know if the lysol would work, but I charged at it with the button to the lysol firmly depressed. The roach started to move its wings, but then fell behind the TV, fortunately deceased.

It remained in that same spot longer than I remained in the apartment, that's all I know.

Next I should tell y'all the story 'bout the time I tried to kill a bat with an insect fogger.