How my biggest fear confronted me

Do you know what my biggest worry was about Brandon going to Australia?  It wasn't that he would die in a plane crash, or that someone would break into our house while I was alone with the kids.  It was that I would have to deal with a cockroach all by myself.  Unfortunately, this fear came true today-- the day before he gets back.

Cockroaches are my biggest fear. You're probably rolling your eyes and thinking, "Duh, everyone is afraid of cockroaches."  True, but not everyone has involuntary, irrational, hysterical reactions to seeing them.  I've lived in Houston for a total of 12 years and have still never gotten up the courage to kill one.  The closest I've come to "dealing with one" was trapping it under a shoe box and hiding in the other room until Brandon got home.  When I was pregnant with Charlie, I found a dead one in my shower and upon seeing it, jumped out of the shower onto the toilet seat and screamed until Brandon came to flush it down the drain.  I'm quite certain that standing wet on a slippery toilet seat while 7 months pregnant was a far greater risk to my safety than standing in the shower with a dead cockroach.  And I'm pretty sure that seeing me 7 months pregnant, standing butt naked on top of a toilet was far scarier to Brandon than the cockroach was.

But like I said, this is not a rational fear. 

And earlier today I glanced over and witnessed a giant cockroach crawl into my purse.  Yes, the very same purse where I keep my keys and wallet.  I consider it a great credit to my self-control that I did not shout every expletive that I know right then.  I mustered up some courage and threw a pillow at my purse to see if that would scare it out.  Nothing happened, so after 5 minutes of having an elevated pulse, goosebumps, and sweating (you think I'm kidding, but I'm serious) I moved the pillow and found the cockroach under it.  This would have been the perfect opportunity to kill it since it was no longer in my purse, but my involuntary reaction got the best of me and I just screamed and ran. When I had calmed down enough to re-enter the room, I realized that it had gone back into my purse.  Armed with a broom handle, I climbed on top of a lounge chair and planned to poke my purse until it crawled out. But I just couldn't do it.  I was a queasy, sweaty mess so I did what I normally do when I experience trauma: I called my sister. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: I just saw a giant roach crawl into my purse and I don't know what to do.
Carrie: Gross!  Just dump everything out and kill it.
me: I can't. I'm scared of cockroaches.
Carrie:  I know they're scary, but you just have to do it.  You'll feel so much better after you kill it.
me: No, seriously, I -- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
(At this moment I had just witnessed the cockroach crawl out of my purse and over to the kitchen.  I screamed for a full 5 seconds, ran to the other end of the room, and started sobbing.  It scared Violet so much that she sunk into the couch, covered her face, and began to cry.)
Carrie: Are you okay?!?!
Me, still sobbing: NOOO!
Carrie: What did it do? Did you get it? Was it crawling on you?
Me: No, it just ran out of my purse.  Which was exactly what I wanted it to do, it just scared me.
Carrie: So it didn't even run towards you, and you still screamed like that?
Me, in tears: YES!
(Now Carrie is laughing hysterically)
Me: I'm going to Mom's house.

And that's the kind of fear it is.  I bet you've never seen a grown woman cry because she saw a cockroach.  But now you've at least heard of one.