Heather’s Pest Control Service - Not for the Weak of Heart

So I’ve just crushed a cockroach for the first time in my life. As I was checking my email I saw one scurrying across the desk towards my computer. It appeared to be “teenaged” in terms of colour and size. I immediately said “ummm…bug…bug! BUG!” and the 4 women that share my area turned around. My boss’s boss laughed and said that in India seeing a bug like that is not a big deal. As it crawled towards my folders and printouts I became more alarmed. Risha, a great co-worker who started a few months before me and has taken me under her wing, came over with another girl and they made the cockroach climb onto a file folder. They were bringing the folder away from my desk area and the cockroach fell to the floor. At this point all 5 of us were standing nearby (I was whining “eeewww…eeewww”). When wearing western trousers, the fashion here is to wear open-toed strappy black heels, so when the cockroach fell and my boss’s boss said, “I won’t do anything about it now,” I decided to be brave. It was scurrying under Risha’s desk. I proclaimed that I was the only one with closed-toe shoes, and with that my right foot came down with a pop and crunch. My stomach is turning describing this, but I wanted to be accurate. I also keep imagining what the bottom of my shoe looks like, maybe with little insect legs squirming…eeeeewww! We all let out a gasp. I apologised to Risha that he ended up being squished under her desk, “better dead than alive,” I said. That’s when my boss’s boss told me that the reason she did not squish the cockroach was because they are all vegetarians. So I was gasping out of fright of and disgust from my proximity to the living cockroach, and they out of disbelief of my brash, barbaric act of slaughter. They said that they do employ a pest service, so it’s not as though they are against killing insects all together. But I think another part of their surprise was that bug-killing is certainly not my duty, just as dropping off cleaning is not one of Robin’s. I’m not sure what will happen the next time I see a bug; I’m not looking forward to it.