Driving With Larry: A Post-Camping Story

Occasionally there is a moment when you are keenly aware of your human frailty, your incomprehensible emotions, your most unwarranted fears, and your utter ridiculousness. I will share such a moment with you.

After a full weekend of camping and alleged "relaxing," David and I, along with all of the mountain of gear that we'd stuffed in the Subaru, made our way home on Sunday afternoon. Our foreheads and noses were sun-seared and served with a side of broiled ears. These paired nicely with freshly-scratched legs and sore muscles. My exhaustion was done to a turn from the combination of two nights of sleeping bags, pushing thirty, and being an introvert among a lot of people I didn't already know very well. Did I mention the pushing thirty bit? David drove home, since he had slept like the dead until an obscenely late hour on Sunday morning, and my pillow and I settled in as grateful passengers to drowse away the return trip. Closing my eyes was so very delicious that I just leaned my head back and embraced the weariness.

All of this peace was short-lived, since a giant black cockroach had just sprinted across David's lap and was now continuing at cheetah-like speeds across the pillow on my lap. David yelled "It's on your pillow!!" Of course my heavy eyelids sproinged open nimbly, instantaneously communicated to my brain what "it" was, and convinced my body that my best defense was to shriek wildly while attempting to carry out a brilliant plan which involved simultaneously rolling down the window with my right hand, picking up the pillow with my left, and trying to shove the offending occupant out the window without ever touching him with any part of my person, since it is well-known among womankind that touching a cockroach, spider, or anything disgusting in the insect world can cause irreparable damage to the body part involved. I could have died, people. It was a big cockroach.

Did I mention we were on the freeway at this point? Oh yes, David did a manfully good job of keeping the car between the lines as his usually-calm wife thrashed violently in the next seat over and assaulted his ears with all the noises that come out of a scared soprano. Needless to say, my incredibly well-developed plan did not work, and the cockroach merely retreated from the maniac in the front passenger seat by crawling hideously down under her seat and cloaking himself in darkness and safety until he could disembark more securely.

Larry, as we called him, remained there for the duration of the trip--over an hour. I kept a wary, sunburned eyeball patrolling the perimeter for as long as I could manage, but ultimately succumbed to dozing off for long periods. These were punctuated by the occasional start and wild-eyed look around my seat and over my shoulders, with suspicious squints down at my pant leg openings. Once home, I think I saw Larry make a run for it on the driveway as I shook and pummeled the pillows that were stowed directly behind my seat. But a thorough car-cleaning this week will provide insurance, as eye-witness testimony is yet inconclusive.

Later I laughed until I cried at the remembrance of acting like such a girl about a bug--one that doesn't even bite or sting. As David says, "it's just a big beetle." This may be true. So I suggested to him that if it wasn't such a big deal, an alternative plan might have been for him to drive with his knee while rolling down the window and grabbing Larry with his other hand, tossing him out, and telling me about it later when I woke up. Hmm--sounds better than my plan at the time. At any rate, that evening was a prime opportunity to settle in and watch the movie Starship Troopers. It seemed like the thing to do after such a drive home with the likes of Larry.

"The only good bug is a dead bug."