A "juke" story

When I lived in Canada, I used to be afraid of spiders. Then I got to Israel... and I discovered cockroaches.

There are worse things...

My Worst Irrational Fear was realized for the first time ever, 16 years ago. 

It was hot summer night in my parents' Ashdod apartment. I had gone down to the kitchen for a snack. The balcony door near the kitchen had been left slightly open. (That's not a mistake I made twice.) As I walked into the kitchen, I felt a sudden tickle on my left arm. Then a tickle on my right. My hair, I thought... until I recalled that my hair was up. 

The realization of the horror that might be trickled slowly through my brain. I brushed my right arm roughly - and with a loud THUD (those things are heavy!), a gigantic flying cockroach landed at my feet and scurried off. 

... like this, for instance. Still one of the scariest things, ever.

I let out a piercing shriek. 

My parents came running down the stairs, "What?!? What happened?!?"

"A cockroach was ON ME!" I yelled, incapable of speaking calmly.

My dad was furious at me: "Pour ça tu cries comme ça?!? I thought you were being murdered by a TERRORIST! If I'd had a weak heart, you would have KILLED me!"

(He was really, really incensed.)

My mother, Brave and Wonderful Woman that she is, hunted down the cockroach and killed it.


* "Juke" is one of the Hebrew words for cockroach. I find it slightly more congenial than the English word, which I usually can't bring myself to speak.