Living-In-Brooklyn Milestones

I Killed a Cockroach Before Breakfast and Other Living-In-Brooklyn Milestones

Table of Contempts

Chapter 1: Parking Tickets are Part of my Monthly Budget.
Chapter 2: I Refuse to Watch Ratatouille.
Chapter 3: I Don't Really Know the Difference Between the Upper and Lower Ends of Manhattan. But I Can Tell You Which Trains to Take.
Chapter 4: I Pay More for Rent Than I Do For...Anything.
Chapter 5: Cement + Swingset = Park.
Chapter 6: Pigeons are Only Afraid of People in Other Cities.
Chapter 7: Um...Sure, New Yorkers Have a Real Inclination for Ice Cream at 3:00am.
Chapter 8: Brooklyn Mice can Outsmart Mouse Traps.
Chapter 9: What Sun?
Chapter 10: I Killed a Cockroach Before Breakfast.

But I told my kids that the Raid just put him to sleep. Cockroaches don't belong in our house, I told them, so I'm putting him to sleep and putting him in the garbage. And then the garbage truck will take him to where he is supposed to live.

I didn't want to pass on my cockroach fears. So we all said hi to the dead sleeping cockroach.

And now my toddler looks for cockroaches every morning. Her face lights up as she imagines saying hello to her friend with the ugly, huge, ugly, huge, and also ugly, antennas. I tried explaining that the cockroach only came around because the kitchen floor had been partially taken out to be fixed.

She's still looking for the cockroach.

Should I be proud that I am raising open-minded children with an appreciation for nature?

Or recognize that I have created a monster.

Pass the Raid wine.