This blog will bug you.

In the course of my 32 years, I’ve killed my fair share of gnats, ants, flies, mosquitoes, mosquito hawks, June bugs, beetles, rollie-pollies, spiders, and crickets. I’ve even bare-handed strange bugs in the middle of a class when a student—typically of the female gender—begins screaming over the realization that during lunch break her purse, book, or (heaven forbid!) her shirt became home to a new species of creepy-crawly.

Yes, I’ve grabbed that ugly beast, put on a formidable face, walked to the door while Bug writhed around in my sweaty palm (all feet and wings and buzzing), and thrown the demon out on his backside.

I’ve had other students—typically of the male gender—put my bug bravery to the test by thrusting lizards, frogs, or rubber bug imitations at my face. I haven’t screamed yet.

But there is one little pest I cannot tolerate. Just one. Let a bee sting me, a pincher bug pinch me, or a moth chew through my socks, but let a cockroach anywhere near me, and I come undone. I will scream (be it stifled or unbridled) every time.

As tradition would have it, our school hosts the annual California Cockroach Convention every summer. Cockroaches from all corners and crevices of California make the pilgrimage to our all-too-welcoming facility. From the women’s bathroom stalls to the teacher’s workroom to classrooms all over campus, large winged cockroaches are to be found drinking, lounging, chatting, and idling away the summer months.

This has presented too many traumatic scenarios for me to recount in this brief blog. But suffice it to say, I may finally surrender my flip-flop heels for closed-toe shoes and begin wearing hats when I go to the bathroom. (The toilet is an awfully vulnerable place to face your worst fear.)

I just realized I’ve been scratching myself as I write this. My skin is absolutely crawling.

Well, friends—whatever the cockroach may be in your life, I wish you peace, safety, courage, and a super-sized can of bug-killing spray.