Ah, the Sounds of Morning . . .

I woke up this morning to a scratching sound somewhere in the corner of my room. Was it the plastic bags in the corner? A shifting of my kitchenware that is still in the box? No to both.

Aha! It was the plastic wrapping on the honey suckle-scented candles I just bought, so new that they were still in the Pottery Barn bag I brought them home in.

Wait a second . . . Why would my candles be scratching something? I took the cellophane-wrapped box of candles out and shook it and pushed on it to see if the cellophane was making the noise. Nope. That's not it. But the noise was coming from the bag. I was sure of it. As I put the box back in it's place, I saw a brown spot caught between the side of the bag and the packing paper on the bottom. A cockroach! Gross! At least it wasn't a mouse.

And it did wake me up for the day -- I hadn't even heard my alarm. Visions of Gregor Samsa danced in my head. What if this cockroach was really a person?

I would kill it anyway. But then it would leave cockroach guts all over my Pottery Barn bounty. So I went outside and dropped it out of the bag. Goodbye, cockroach!

I thought about all the places a bug or small rodent could hide in my place and immediately had a minor panic attack. Heavenly Father, please don't let any more creatures find their way into my apartment.


Thing I'm thankful for: pest control.