I have never before used the word granddaddy, and I believe I could have comfortably gone to my grave without doing so had I not seen the granddaddy of all water bugs in my apartment the other day. Two inches long, it prowled across my mantle like Mata Hari on a mission. In a rush to go out, I almost did not see it at all, but once it caught my eye, I could see nothing else.

I am inadequately prepared to deal with roaches, both physically and mentally. When I moved into this apartment, I bought a spray called Poison Free, which is supposed to murder the little buggers without, as its name implies, spreading poison everywhere, an important consideration if one has a little dog who runs around licking everything. The fact is, do not like to kill things at all. Poison Free seemed so appealing precisely because of its name. Where there is no poison, I thought, perhaps the death is symbolic. Perhaps, as in paint ball, the targeted roach would say, "Oh, you got me!" and remove itself from play. The spray can itself acts to contradict such expectations: "Kills in seconds!" it proclaims, conveniently not mentioning that a year can also be measured in seconds. Poison Free apparently eliminates insects not by gently ushering them out of the apartment, as I would prefer, but by drowning them in an inch of liquid: one has to empty half the can before the bug even slows down, and by the time it dies, the sprayer himself is ready to keel over from the penetrating minty fumes, which cling to everything and linger for days afterward.

It is a lengthy and hair-raising process.

This particular extermination operation took so long that I was almost late to a movie; I left the tiny corpse on the floor under a paper towel. Luckily Goblin was at Rob's house for the day. I arranged for her to be there the next day, too, so I could scrub every inch of the apartment and place new giant Combat traps around the apartment. (My old Combat traps were the size of dollhouses to the granddaddy of all water bugs. The new ones are so big that I am afraid my dog will get stuck in one.)

So now my apartment is sparkling clean and fresh. There is no insect in sight. Goblin, of course, was horrified when I brought her home. "My smells, my beautiful smells!" she shrieked. "What have you done to them?!?"

"Fear not," I said. "You will make newer and even more glorious smells soon!"

And she has.