In the Before Time, before the pandemic and social distancing and the loss of everything fun not done at home, I worked alongside cockroaches.
Gasp if you like. ’Tis true.
I work in the basement of a campus building called Hodges Hall. And before the nano master replicator caused chaos, I and the other people who labored there saw roaches daily.
Big roaches. Little roaches. Scurrying roaches. Roaches on their backs, legs wiggling. Dead roaches.
It was the Hodges Horde.
Nothing about our basement seemed especially welcoming to cockroaches. But there they were, our gross-out companions.
Then came pandemic, and the bugs disappeared. I worked in that basement, nearly alone, for months. I saw no people. I saw no roaches.
This week, with the resumption of university classes and the return of thousands of students and faculty …
I see roaches.
Big.
Little.
Scurrying.
Legs waving.
Dead.
This morning, a roach entered my office. I scuffed it away. It returned. I kicked it again – way down the hall.
Why their return?
Humans.
I love y’all.
But not those six-legged freshmen.
Hysterical!