Word Count 735

Yes, we had roaches on the East Coast—but they weren’t the size of the Titanic, and they couldn’t fly. In Connecticut, roaches died easily with the swat of a slipper or a rolled-up newspaper. In Arizona—our new home—they were encased in hard-shelled body armor, apparently necessary to survive in a harsh desert environment. Killing them was like a back-alley street fight: they zigzagged around the room like B-52s. Sometimes it took our whole family to corner one. And then—whap whap whap—my dad beat them to death with repetitive blows from his size 12 Oxford, at which point they released their gooey, paste-like insides in a final death spurt. It was almost better to let them live.