Terrible cockroach story

[fbhjr]

A quarter of a century or so ago my (now) wife and I lived in a very run down apartment in the city of Worcester.
It was the place I had lived in college and we kept living there when I graduated because it was what we could afford.
(My first engineering job paid about $7 and hour. Hey, that was double minimum at the time.)

Anyhow, when we lived there, we had lots of roommates. Usually 3-4. And, on weekends lots of our friends also came to hang out.

gilden used to be a fairly regular visitor and often stayed over for the weekend.
He did not like the cockroaches that lived there, but they did seem to like him. We’d see more when he was there than the rest of the week combined.

To protect his toothbrush he bought a little cap for it so the roaches wouldn’t get in.
One morning he went to the bathroom and found a roach using the little cap for his toothbrush as a RV and the bristles as it’s bed.

For the last 25 years, I’ve thought that was a sign of just how much gilden was the pied piper of roaches and that they would do anything to get close to him. (Actually, I thought it was the tobacco as he was one of our few friends who smoked, and there would be lots on the toothbrush. But, either way.)

I was talking with him on my way home from work tonight (yay for my Prius and its hands free) and he told me that wasn’t the case.

Apparently our roommate Jim and put the roach there on purpose!
gilden apparently had not left the bathroom clean enough for Jim, and this was his retaliation!

I am really having trouble with the idea one of my roommates was so awful to one of our friends.
Bugs don’t know better.
People should.

I know it happened decades ago, but this really bothers me.

I guess the good news is that gilden has prospered, but Jim has not.

Comments

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

Worcester.
How is this city pronounced in that part of the world?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Wooster.

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought.

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

Also Woostah.

And Wistah.

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

I seem to say Wustah

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you, I was trying to figure out the "Boston" spelling. ;-)

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

OMG that's disgusting. That made me shiver in yuck.

Cockroaches are one of my fears ... they make my skin crawl. Once my sister picked up a dead one (In Brisbane we have those big flying brown ones) and she chased me with it. *shudders* ..

[zosh.livejournal.com]

I knew I was going to marry my husband the first time I met him. But knew for sure the first time he killed a bug for me and did not chase me with it.

[sorceress.livejournal.com]

I lived in a house infested with those flying friggin' cockroaches in Perth. WHY do they go straight for the face?!

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

oh man, they are buggers. We were outside once in Brisbane with our neighbours quietly eating a bbq and I swear they were dive bombing us - the little buggers!

[sorceress.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Perth I was in a house FULL of cockroaches... I swear I could hear them in the walls... *shudder* very, very old house, cheap rent for such a huge place so close to the city... but the cockroaches...

EVERYWHERE. Not just little ones either. Occasionally we'd see the airbus equivalent of the roach world skittering down the wall. Or flying at us. UGH!