A new bride & an extreme phobia = ?

Now I’ve always been a storyteller, and some stories from my memory bank have over the years become family lore. It is always with great joy (and “glee” of course, if the story is to the embarrassment of another family member) that I regale the extended family with these stories during get-togethers and holidays. Here’s one such nugget from the time I was a new bride some 38+ years ago.

It’s hard now to even imagine that at the age of 23, having known my husband for barely 3 weeks, I moved to Bahrain and into a home with my husband’s family – his parents, brother and sister. New husband, new parents, new siblings [my saving grace 😉 ], new home, new country, new friends.

And so, the settling in began. In a couple of days I realized that this new family was very different from my own. Here there were no emotional outbursts or extravagant displays of affection… nothing that was in the least bit dramatic. And then into this *seemingly quiet, well-behaved, Pentecostal home, along came a new bride who giggled at inappropriate times (most often in church, to the horror of the new mother-in-law), talked loudly all the time, and sobbed every time she talked on the telephone to her parents.

Barely a week in, when everyone (except my mother-in-law and I) was getting ready for work, I went into the walk-in closet. And there sitting right in the middle of the room – staring straight at me was the largest cockroach I’ve ever seen!!🥴 All my life I have been deathly afraid of cockroaches. But this phobia was an unknown to my new husband or family and my dilemma was – how do I handle it?”

So as Jai walked by me to the washroom, I informed him “casually” of the roach in the closet. “Oh this is an old villa and there are bound to be a couple here and there. There’s a new Piff Paff in the pantry” he said, seemingly unbothered, and went in for his shower. What? He wanted me to kill the roach??? On my own?

The next thing I remember is holding the yellow Piff Paff can in my right hand and facing the creature. If this were an old Western movie, you would have heard that familiar music that plays when there is a face-off between the sheriff and villain. I could actually hear it in my head amidst the noise of my heart that was thumping loudly and the racing adrenaline! Of course I could do this. I was married. I was an adult.

And so I aimed at the creature and pressed the nozzle hard. Unfortunately though, for some reason, the finger pressure I placed on the nozzle was directly connected to my vocal chords. In total sync with the spray, my throat emitted what I would call the loudest unending banshee-like scream. I say “scream” in the singular because believe me, there was no pause at all! Finally, after what seemed an eternity, with a little piffst, the spray stopped. The can had run dry. And the scream died down.

There lay the roach, very dead at my feet. Slowly I raised my head, took a deep breath of Piff Paff fog, and looked around. On one side, crowding into the doorway, were dad, mum, Shirley and George, staring at me with worry and alarm written all over their faces. And on the other was a husband who had clearly jumped out of the shower in sheer panic!!

What did I do? What could I do? I flung the can onto the carpet, threw myself onto the bed and cried loudly and hysterically.  

What did they do? Well, what could they do? At a total loss and speechless, everyone filed out of the room. 😄 And as they walked out, I overheard my father-in-law (a man of few words) murmur, “You know, she could’ve killed a cobra with that much spray!!”