It started at our old house on Winsford Drive, this war between me and cockroaches, and the cockroaches have been set back some, but they still prevail.

I read Bug Busters, for the non-toxic-to-humans-and-pets approach to ridding ourselves of cockroaches. Not long after putting boric acid along every crack and in every hole in the house, a 2-inch cockroach jumped on my son-in-law while he took a shower. Good thing he had been in Africa prior to or he may have walked out of our family.

Then we moved. To an old house. BUT after throwing away 4 dumpsters worth of trash, re-doing floors, and coating the walls with fresh paint, I had hope.

It was false. Alas, there were new cracks, new holes, new moist areas in the basement and attic, and ivy for the little creeps to hang out in. I called Noah's Pest Control at 10:30 one night shrieking about I knew they were closed but as soon as they got in the next morning to please send someone out to kill these things. That was after seeing a huge one crawl up my bedroom wall. Would I feel it if it crawled over my face in the night? Shiver.

A brief reprieve.

I felt calmness.

Then, "We're baa-ack!" One crawled across Cat's foot while she brushed her teeth.

"Down here, on the floor, hee-hee-hee," said another in his nasty cockroach voice as I sat at a table at Moe's.

And, "We're even downtown, hahaha," said yet one more as he marched straight across my path as I walked down to Starbucks.

YOU WILL NOT WIN!! I said to all of them, between clenched teeth. There was a definite revenge in my eyes.

They showed up while I was at my daughter's house, who, up until that point, had not seen a cockroach at her house. There he was, laughing, crawling up the dining room wall.

And at 11 PM when I was in bed, cozily tucked and drifting off to sleep, Cat came in, flipped on the lamp, and then said, "Wait, what's that crawling up the wall?" Yep. You guessed it.

But I was prepared this time. I had a can of Hot Shot! I dashed downstairs, came back with the can, and sprayed like crazy. The cockroach fell, I screamed, almost caught my foot in the folding chair as it collapsed when I got down, and what ensued was like a scene from the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Me spraying, the cockroach NOT dying, and then ME slipping in the Hot Shot that now coated the floor.

I killed the little nasty with a shoe. But the cockroach still won. My bedroom smelled like Hot Shot for hours.