Drop Roaches - A Tale of Extraordinary Courage

We were running late, of course. I was taking my 16 year old son and his friend D to the Opera House to see the Pokemon Symphonic and we needed to leave ten minutes ago. I unlocked the car and the boys got in.

"NOOOOO! There are cockroaches!" screamed my son.

"AAGGGH" screamed his friend.

And they were right. Three huge cockroaches were scampering across the floor of my car.

"Oh GOD," I cried. We fled the car. "I'll fix it!"  I bolted inside and emptied every cupboard of my house in a frantic search for bug spray. There was none. Oh, GOD. So I grabbed the next best thing.
Hair spray.

I was dashing out to the car with the hair spray held optimistically aloft when my neighbour appeared at her door, smells of a delicious chicken dinner wafting behind her.

"I NEED YOUR BUG SPRAY!" I yelled. She looked a little surprised. She is a lovely woman, and grandmother of several, and probably isn't accustomed to being screamed at on her own doorstep.

But she handed it over.

"I'll give it back later!" I called over my shoulder, and ran back out to the car.

There I found the teenage boys, being... well.... not as brave as one might hope.

"I'm not getting back in there!" my son announced. "Ever."

"YES YOU ARE!" I yelled. We were even more late, and I had spent a fortune on the tickets. "Here. We'll spray them and they'll die."

So I sprayed. I pretty much emptied my neighbour's spray within the confines of my not-so-big car. The fumes were toxic. Which was good, really, as that probably meant the cockroaches were dead.
Or we would pass out, and be immune from their fearsome powers.

The roaches disappeared, and so we felt strong enough to proceed. I put the keys in the ignition, the boys put their feet up on the seats, and off we went.

I was on a main road, heading towards the city, when my son began screaming.

"Mum! It's on the ceiling! It's right above you!"

"NOOOOO!" I cried. "OH MY GOD NO!!!"

"It's FALLING!" he yelled. "IT'S A DROP ROACH! OH GOD IT'S ON YOUR BACK!!!"

"HELP!!!" I screamed frantically (all the while keeping my foot on the pedals and guiding the car vaguely in the right direction). "OH MY GOD!"

And then my son's friend D came to the rescue. "STAY STILL!" He pointed the bug spray at my back and fired. "Got it!"

The roach fell down. Somewhere. I don't know where. I pulled over and collapsed, shaking, by the side of the road.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"No worries," he said cheerfully. "I'm in the Rifle Shooting team at school,"

We went to the concert and had a wonderful time. And today, obviously, I buy a new car.