Outlast It

With a title such as "Outlast It," and a Headline photo of a tiger in the snow, you might be expecting a story about the wilderness and survival of the fittest.

But I cannot tell a lie, I'm feeling kind of impish. The Quick Read you're about to undertake isn't EXACTLY what you would expect-BUT IT'S 100% LEGIT AND COMPLETELY ON TARGET.  

So hang with me, and be prepared for the unexpected.  Ready?  

Everyone who lives in a city apartment knows that there are roaches in the walls.  Thousands of them.  Our apartment in Queens was no different.

What happened was our upstairs neighbor was having his bathroom plumbing gutted; and by doing so, displaced the thousands of roaches who normally resided in that space.

Where did they go?  

INSIDE OUR APARTMENT!  It was like a scene out of “Creepshow.”

It was so bad, that when the exterminator entered our apartment with his pump can of bug spray, he took one step inside and said, “We’re gonna have to bomb-fog this place.”

24 hours after the bomb-fog was complete, we returned to the apartment.  There were dead roaches everywhere.  Belly-up with their nasty little legs all shriveled and curled.  Ew.

The plan was to sweep up the bugs first, and thoroughly disinfect all surfaces afterwards.

I took a piece of cardboard to scrape those not-so-little corpses into the garbage can.  At my first pass, one of the roaches rolled over onto his legs.  He may as well have lit a cigarette, and flipped me the Italian bird; because he strutted away-LIKE A BOSS.

Believe it or not…That Roach taught me a valuable lesson in persistence.  That roach was there to stay.  He outlasted the Terminator Exterminator. (We, on the other hand, moved out immediately.)  

I want to be like that roach, and develop the persistence to outlast whatever obstacle is in my way.


PERSISTENCE CREDO
You may be bigger than me
You may be stronger than me
You may have resources far greater than mine
I WILL OUTLAST YOU