larger than life

I was sleeping peacefully the other night and woke up to pee at 2am – don’t you just hate that! So anyways, I returned to bed and curled up but sleep did not return to me. At around 2:30 I decided maybe I was a little bit hungry so with candle in hand I headed to the kitchen to grab a handful of cereal to tame the growling beast within. Boy was I surprised by what I found! With my candle on the counter I looked up at the wall to see the single largest cockroach that I have EVER seen in person (even when I lived in Florida I never saw one of this magnitude). At first I thought it was an optical allusion of some sort – like the candle must be casting a shadow from its uplighting angle. But I kept staring and even moved the candle and it was true: he was about 2.5 inches long and quite a fatty at over 1 inch wide at his middle. He stayed there and I snacked on cereal just giggling to myself. As I headed back toward bed I found another surprise on the wall on the living room: a spider with legs spanning wider around than my palm! Again I was simply amazed and aside from realizing that maybe I should never get up in the middle of the night again, I could only stare in wonder and awe. I considered that maybe I was in a sci-fi movie. These creatures were large enough to classify as rodents! I have seen full-grown mice smaller than that cockroach! If they want to share my residence I’m okay with that, as long as they know that night time is their only time to come out and play. Hopefully they’ll follow the rules and stay in the front of the house, too! Oh yeah, and I laid awake until around 6:30am when sleep finally returned to me for another couple hours.