Then suddenly, a storm.
October is the last hurrah for all the giant roaches. The ones they call junebugs. You tell me it’s time to get the exterminator to come out on the verandah, because there they rove in wildest waves, roach-gangs across the tiles and if you stand still for just a moment, talking on the phone, they will be up your very leg like that, lady, so ungentlemanly are they in this, their last-hurrah month. Sitting on the floor inside, even, computer in lap, even, looking for all the world like one of those modern ads, the ones with the people in silhouette, with white electrod—headphones, I mean, affixed to ear sockets; so hip/clean/untouched are you, too, till those black armored antenna’ed beasts come scurrying, across that hand you have so casually tossed behind, downloading illegal music, reading that email your sweetheart sent you.

It's like this every year. Thank god for the kitties. They get less sleep, now. They stalk. They stab them and leave them, pitchpoled, bicycling legs frantic, to find in the morning and squash.