Encounter with the flying cockroach

I do not detest much in this life, but I do hate large bugs.  Actually, I only hate them when they enter my house.  Bugs do not belong in people's houses; they belong outside, far away from civilization.  But I digress.

We don't often get bugs in our house, but one or two will show up every once in a while, like about once every couple months or so  I don't think this is a reflection on my tidyness because my next door neighbor also gets bugs in her house at about the same frequency, and she is neater than I am.  I guess what these bugs don't have in quantity they make for in quality because the bugs we get are these abnormally huge black roaches.  I mean, they are HUGE!!!  It should not be physiologically possible for a bug to be this big.  And they scare the you-know-what out of me. 

Now, I had often heard about flying cockroaches, mostly from my family and friends who live in the states on the bottom row of the map (Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Texas, etc.).  The very idea has always made my skin crawl, so luckily I had never personally seen a flying cockroach.

Until last week.

I was up late collating exams to hand back to my Physiology students.  Everyone else in the house was already in bed and asleep, so it was just me downstairs in the kitchen.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this black thing crawling up the wall.  So I stepped back, and sure enough, it was a huge black roach.  So gross!  I watched it crawl along the crown molding for a few seconds, contemplating how I was going to handle this situation (my designated bug-killer, aka Ben, was already asleep).  And then, it happened.  The thing took flight! Right towards the fridge! Yikes!  I called it a night right then and there; I ran up the stairs and headed to bed, hoping that the thing would just crawl back into whatever hole it came from and never reveal itself again.

I have not seen the huge beast since.  But still, it makes me wonder what giant jointed-legged chitinous-exoskeletoned beasts are roaming my house at night.   *shudder*