There are certain vocabulary words in a foreign language that you never have to know. Then again there are certain ones that suddenly pop up into your life and you have no choice but to confront them (or scream them, as the case may be). C-A-F-A-R-D is one such word.
After several years in the slums of Brooklyn, I became well acquainted with cockroaches. They were gross and I hated them, but on the plus side, they were small as ants! At a dinner party with friends several weeks ago, I met my first cockroach à la Reunion Island, a cafard. We were sitting around the table when suddenly a black hockey puck-sized mound flitted across the wall. Everyone screamed. I made the poor karmic decision of smugly proclaiming to my neighbor, "Thank God I don't have those at my house!"
Flash forward to last night when I was sitting eating dinner in peace and a cockroach the size of Alabama started playing in my kitchen. A frequent reaction to insects back home is to kill them. My question to the contrary is, "Would you step on a mouse to get rid of it?" Similar sizing--some things are much too big. I sat stock still in mortal disgust for nearly an hour, hoping that the cafard would skitter out of my home on his own accord. We each bluffed at each other: me with a broom, he with his antennae.
Honestly, after a while I lost interest in his childish games and went to bed (with one eye always opened!!). He was gone when I woke up this morning...
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