I was zigging and zagging my way back to the hotel tonight when I saw a rat.

It was about fifteen feet away, hulking around beneath a street lamp. I don't know what it was doing. Rats kind of have their own agenda, and they have yet to bring us humans into the fold. One can only hope that the day is nigh when we'll know what the little bastards are up to.

Anyway, as I got closer, I realized that it was just a baby rat. It wasn't a gigantic rat. It looked like it might have been the kind of rat that you'd attempt to feed by placing a little bit of cheese between your teeth and letting it walk up to take it directly from your lips. The only thing stopping you, of course, is the Black Plague. If that weren't the case, then I think more people would be feeding cute baby rats in this fashion.

Once I was really close, though, everything changed. I got a good close look at it and it dawned on me that, for a rat, it sure had a whole lot of unnecessary exoskeleton. The feelers also seemed a bit out of place.

Come to think of it, the six legs weren't exactly very rattish, either. It's like I wasn't even looking at a rat.

That's when my brain connected all the dots. I may be a bit of a stupid jack-ass, but you don't have to be the Crocodile Hunter to have figured out that this thing wasn't a rat at all, but rather a rat-size cockroach.

As I stood there, mouth agape, reeling in horror as I watched the hideous beast "taste" the air with its wretched, seeking antennae, it walked right up to a nice couple about twenty feet away, took one quick glance around, and mugged them.

I screamed like a ten year old girl and ran across the street to the Hyatt, bolting through the lobby, and making it up to the room as quickly as possible.

I'm sitting here now, can of RAID within reach, trying to make sense of what I've seen.

They don't make bugs like that in Portland. They just don't.

After Blog Mint [?] :

I've been meaning to respond to this post of Steve's for quite a while now. But, since I'm obviously too busy writing about Used Jesus Salesmen and Volkswagen cockroaches, I'm just going to link to it. I'm still hoping to respond in full, but I wanted to make sure that I at least got the link up...