We were at the beach and I woke up first, because that’s what I do when I have the opportunity to sleep in as late as I want … wake up early. I tiptoed out of the room and went into the bathroom and I saw it. It was horrible. I screamed and went to grab Wonder Boy.
He was lying peacefully in bed but I poked at him anyway.
“You have to get up.”
“Why? I’m asleep.”
“There’s a cockroach in the bathroom!”
“Just don’t go back in there. I’ll get it later.”
“You have to go kill it! It’s the size of a small dog!”
So he rolled out of bed and walked off to kill a bug. When he didn’t come in saying he had killed the bug, I tiptoed back towards the bathroom. Wonder Boy was on his hands and knees looking under the sink.
“I lost it. I’ll find it later.”
And he went and crawled back into bed.
I admit to being a baby about most bugs, but this big, giant, glossy black cockroach was just too much. I carefully walked around the kitchen making sure I didn’t come across any more bugs and got myself some coffee. Then I went back to a stool and carefully sat, with no parts of my body touching the ground or anything aside from the one stool, drinking coffee and reading a book.
An hour-and-a-half later Wonder Boy woke up and came into the living room.
“Have you been on that stool the whole time?”
“That bug was huge. I can’t go back there.”
Wonder Boy went back to the bathroom and returned a few minutes later with a cockroach nestled in some paper towels. He walked outside and set it loose.
Just to be safe, I stayed on my stool a while longer. Finally I announced that I was going to brave it and go back to the bathroom so I could do my morning routine – medicine, brush my teeth, wash my face – and Wonder Boy told me I was safe.
“How do you know? Maybe there was more than one.”
“I already checked. I’ve checked twice since I caught the one. No more cockroaches.”
And THAT. That checking twice after he knew it was okay. That is love.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.