Roach Wars: The Six-Legged Menace

Each and every day Dani and I wage a war of the most vicious kind.  Chemical weapons are liberally deployed.  Our apartment is strewn with guts, limbs, and slimy gore that sticks to the soles of our shoes.  The brutal intensity of the conflict is shocking at times and I find myself surprised by the great lengths Dani and I go to conquer our heartless, never-ending opponent: the cockroach. 

The body of a deceased combatant.

You can find a brief outline of the major combatants in this epic conflict below:

Dani “Ninja Stomper” Ryan  
Strengths:
Danielle shows no fear when she is prepared for battle.  She ruthlessly scours the territory of the apartment for a roach presence and when one is detected, she takes immediate and decisive action! 
Weaknesses:
Dani “Ninja Stomper” Ryan does not react well ambushes.  When surprised, she often lets out small squeals of terror and quickly vacates the kill zone…only to return with a vengeance armed with her weapon of choice.   
Weapon of Choice:
The dreaded flip flop.  This is an excellent choice for Danielle’s combat style.  It can be wielded either by hand or on the foot.  She often chooses to deploy the flip flop strapped to her feet with screams of “HIIIYAAAAH!” piercing the warm night air.   
Combat Style:
Danielle possesses an aggressive, no holds barred, attack-dog mentality. She does not mind blood, guts and the sickening crunch following an overenthusiastic flip-flop attack.  She does however, leave the clean-up for her loyal comrade.    

The primary weapons deployed in the conflict.

 Jon “Blister Agent” Ryan
Strengths:
Jon fares well with ambushes and has won accolades for his cool-headed reaction to “roach dropped on the head” ambushes.  His primary strength is not in the short term elimination of immediate threats but rather his merciless dedication to the long-term extermination of the cockroach species through the use of innovative chemical techniques.    
Weaknesses:
Jon has an inherent aversion to the crunch following a combat engagement with a flip flop or shoe.  As a result, his reaction time to sudden appearance of roaches is delayed as he scrambles frantically to find an aerosol spray can.  This slow reaction time gives roaches the advantage in their familiar hit and run tactics. 
Weapon of Choice:
Aerosol spray can.  Jon is a cold-blooded killer of roaches with the aerosol can.  Cruel, triumphant smiles cross his lips as he watches the grotesque mechanical movements of dying roaches legs as they squirm to breathe and stay alive after being doused in the spray.  Jon’s aim is deadly.  If you are a cockroach and you are reading this, watch your back.  He is coming for you.   
Combat Style:
Anything chemical.  Jon is a chemical weapons specialist.  He purchases chemical agents from Bangladesh, Korea and China and has developed a proficiency in several techniques, but his preferred technique he refers to as the “Baqsol Booby Trap” (South Korean design), where globs of poisonous, brown goo are placed in the corners near the drains and lie in wait for an unsuspecting roach to devour it, die be cannibalized by his/her colleagues.  Then they die.  Etc. etc.    

Roach Spec-Ops
Strengths:
Roaches have two primary strengths: numbers and resilience.  There is strength in numbers and statistically for every cockroach we see in our Dhaka apartment, there are a further two hundred hidden away in the walls, pipes and drains.  Secondly, they are tough little buggers (like the pun?  BUGgers!) as they can survive months without food, go 45 minutes without breathing, live for days in the freezer, and can tolerate ridiculously high temperatures.  They are also stealthy, can squeeze through insanely small cracks and are great at hiding.  Their resistance to radiation also renders the use of nuclear weapons redundant. 
Weaknesses:
The primary weakness of the roach is their foolish reaction to being cornered.  They often run to a corner, remain motionless while looking ugly…essentially waving a white flag of surrender.  Unbeknownst to them, prisoners are not taken in this conflict! (While Danielle and I acknowledge that this is a blatant violation of Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, I did preface this post with a warning that this is a particularly bloody and brutal conflict!)
Weapon of Choice:
Roaches use biological warfare.  They tend to enjoy living in sewers and, as such, decided to deploy various germs, diseases and contagions with them as they raid our kitchen, bathrooms and living room.  Thankfully these villainous creatures have yet to be successful in their campaign against our health.
Combat Style:
Guerrilla warfare is the preferred strategy of Deshi cockroaches, as exemplified by the fact that they deploy their units only at night and are reluctant to approach well-lit rooms.  They effectively use textbook guerrilla hit and run tactics such as dropping from the ceiling onto Jon’s head (always Jon’s…never Dani’s!) and always remain mobile.

There you have it folks!  We fight a daily, endless battle against a vicious, capable, numerous (possibly undefeatable) foe but our morale is high, Dani’s flip flops are primed, my aerosol cans are loaded and we are ready to press on to our ultimate victory in the Roach War.