Naked Toddler vs the Cockroach

Maybe you want to start this article off by guessing who won this epic battle. Honestly, it's hard to say.

But if you are wondering who the big loser was in the end...that was me! Definitely me!

So let me tell you about this fun little adventure my family went on 10 years ago.

My husband was two years into the Navy, recently graduated from college, and had just completed all his naval training. It was time to pick our first 'Duty Station'.

Me being an idiot and not even thinking twice, I jumped at the chance to go to Japan.

My grandmother was a Japanese citizen and I had been lucky enough to visit Tokyo my sophomore year of high school. Nothing seemed more fun to me than getting to spend two whole years in Japan.

But the thing I learned quickly about the Navy is what you want isn't always what you get...

So I find myself in the country town of Sasebo, Japan in the Nagasaki Prefecture on the Southeastern tip of Japan's Kyushu Island. But, hey, it's Japan so I'm going to make the most of the experience.

With 99 Islands, jungle-covered mountains, a bustling seaport, and *strangely enough* an amusement park based on Holland, Sasebo is shaping up to be one of the most interesting tours of our whole career.

Things take a turn for the worst when we arrive at the military base that will serve as our home for the next two years. While staying in the military hotel, we learn in the first week that no housing is available for us (we will have to find something outside of base...you know in real Japan...where people speak Japanese! Which I don't!) and in less than two weeks my husband is shipping out.

So I got the 'Cho' out in town, and a car, and learned how to drive on the other side of the road, and found my way to said house, in an 11 story high rise that overlooked the quirky Huis Ten Bosch on the side of one of those jungle-covered mountains. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself.

I still had my sanity *mostly* and hadn't lost a kid yet, so things were looking up.

We settled into our new home. I learned to do things like unpack a whole house and build cribs all by myself, check the parking lot for wild pigs before exiting the building, and what buttons to push on the toilet so it was just the right temperature for my tooshie.

But there was one thing I just couldn't tackle on my own, the bugs! Japanese bugs are like three times as large and when you live on the side of the jungle for some strange reason they think your home is their home too.

The cockroaches are the worst! And by that I mean they don't freaking die. They are some sort of radioactive mutant that no amount of Raid can kill...and let's face it with only living an hour and a half outside of Nagasaki it's probably our fault (You know America!) they are like that.

So that brings me to the epic battle that ensued in my house one evening.

Picture it...

A quiet evening much like any other. I have the two kids in the bathtub while I count down the minutes till bedtime. When they finally reached the optimal level of prune-ish wrinkles on their little fingers and toes, I let out the water and wrapped them up in towels.

Carrying my now six-month-old baby in my arms, her little two-year-old brother walked beside me. We had just left the bathroom when I heard a large thunk and watched a cockroach the length of my hand drop out of the recessed lighting and onto the floor in front of us.

I did my best not to panic. It wasn't the first cockroach I'd seen since moving in, but it was the first one actually in my apartment. I walked the two kids over to the rug at one end of the hall. Sat the baby down still wrapped in her towel and told the two-year-old to stay with her.

Running to my kitchen, I grabbed the can of Raid I always had at the ready. Slowly I inched closer to the mutant insect who seemed just fine to amble down the hall on his six hideous legs.

The only thought in my head: Please don't start to fly, please don't start to fly.

That's right, these freakish monstrosities fly!

I start spraying...okay drowning...the thing in Raid. At the very least his wings will be wet and he can't come at me with an aerial assault right?

But I'm making a pretty good size puddle around him, and he just really doesn't seem to care. He is practically swimming in this stuff and he is showing me the different kinds of strokes he can do like he is a freaking Olympic Gold Medalist!

Finally, he realizes that he doesn't like this stuff, and starts walking down the hall away from the kids.

That's fine by me because as much as I love my babies, I really don't know if I won't sacrifice one of them to the bug god to keep him from touching me.

I follow him down the hall a trail of Raid raining down on him the whole way. He may be resistant to my poison spray but I know he has to at least breathe air. If I keep him in a puddle he is bound to drown at some point...right?

Finally, the thing stops moving and I double the puddle around him for good measure. I stand there staring at him for a good thirty seconds, daring him to even think about twitching.

Suddenly I hear another 'thunk'. Man, that was way louder than the last one. I have visions of a massive cockroach ball falling out of my ceiling. I hear my two-year-old call out for help.

My Momma Bear instincts kick in and I'm happy to report that I ran towards the danger instead of leaving my kids to fend for themselves despite the imagined cockroach ball of doom.

Reaching the end of the hall, I see the only image that could possibly terrify me more than a mass of bugs dropping out of the lights.

The two-year-old has left the safety of his sister's side, leaving the towel behind of course, and was trying to get to me unabashedly wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

The only thing is there's that giant puddle of Raid at the start of the hall. Not noticing it, and running at top speed.

He slipped and hit the wood floor with a smack, and proceeded to stand, slip, smack, stand, slip, smack in the puddle of Raid coating his tiny little body in its toxic goodness.

My initial thought: Raid may not work on cockroaches but what about little boys rolling around in it naked?

For a minute I really didn't know what to do while I watched him flail his little body in the toxic kiddy pool I had created in my hallway.

Finally, my senses came back to me, I dragged him out of the puddle...by his foot..and proceeded to repeat bathtime.

Having both children clean...again...and put to bed, I proceeded to mop up the toxic pool that ran the whole length of the hall.

I would like to say that soaking a good portion of my apartment...and one child...in Raid gave off enough fumes to keep the rest of the bugs away...but it didn't.

As much as I loved that apartment, the beautiful view of the little dutch village with its tulip fields and windmills, as well as the harbor beyond...I didn't love the freaking bugs!

In the end, I guess the cockroach won, because a year into our tour an opening became available on base and I jumped at the chance to move into a house where pest control regularly sprayed.

The move saved my sanity...and possibly my son from brain damage due to repeat exposure to insect poison, but my tooshie did miss that warm toilet seat!