The Flying Gokiburi

Tonight, as I was cleaning my apartment, out of the corner of my eye I saw something fly and land upside down on my ceiling. I immediately looked and saw that it was a huge cockroach. Now, before you judge me as somebody who lives in filth because I have a cockroach, let me tell you that the cleanest apartments can have a cockroach - especially if you live in Japan where there is nothing but thin walls that separate you from the outside world.
The girly-ness inside of me immediately went to my door (giving the cockroach on the ceiling a wide birth), into my flip-flops, and out the door to get one of my manly neighbors, Peter, to come and kill the nasty pincher-baring thing (yes, it had pinchers!). But half way there (about 4 feet outside of my apartment) I thought, "Wait a minute! I don't need no man to take care of a bug. I am a big girl and I can kill it myself." So, I marched right back into my apartment, took off the flip-flops and grabbed one of them to do the dirty work. The plan was to get on the stool (not directly under it 'cause it could take revenge in its last dying breath and fall on me) and use my powerful right arm (the one that I can smack a ball out of the ballpark with (okay, I only did that one time in my whole 9 years of playing softball - but my right arm is strong)) to kill that gokiburi in one, powerful strike.
This apartment wasn't big enough for the both of us, especially since he was as big as my index finger (seriously) and he could fly. So he had to go.
I moved the stool into position all-the-while watching him taunt me with his pinchers. Before he could see my intentions and fly off (possibly at me), I mustered all of my power and thrust the flip-flop towards the ceiling intending to smash him on the spot. Unfortunately, I didn't calculate well enough my shortness as compared to the height of the ceiling so I only succeeded in swiping him off the ceiling (it was a really good swipe, though) in a ninety degree angle from me. To my horror, he turned around the whole ninety degrees and flew right at me! I let out a scream as it was coming at me. It was heading for my chest. I started swinging the flip-flop around trying to get the horrid creature away from me as a series of screams proceeded from my mouth (I laugh now at what it must have sounded like). It bouned off of my chest and I started flailing - I mean swinging - harder and faster trying to get it away from me. I think that it was actually attacking me! The rest is kind of blank in my mind. All I remember is coming to my senses turned the opposite way I had been on the stool, with my feet planted firmly on the ground, and the horrid gokiburi writhing in front of me on the floor. For fear that it was still well enough to fly at me again, I quickly finished it off with one swing of my flip-flop. It was no more and now it is happily flushed down the toilet.
I didn't come out of the whole battle unscathed. Somehow I managed to get two good-sized welps on my left arm that obviously came from the flip-flop (knowing myself, I'm just lucky that I didn't slap myself in the face with that weapon) and one of them is staring to bruise slightly. But it was worth it to get rid of that horrid creature. I thought about pinning the dead thing to my cork board as a death message to any other cockroach that should choose to be in my apartment in plain sight, but then I figured that was stupid because then I would have to see it everytime I came into my apartment and it would give me flashbacks of that life threatening moment when it came flying at me. Too much trauma....so I decided that I will buy those little roach motel killer thingies tomorrow as soon as I get up.
So that was my showdown with the flying gokiburi. To any women out there who are reading this, I hope that this story is encouraging to you in that you have the courage inside of you to take care of a huge, flying cockroach. You don't need no man to take care of it for you. Just don't forget to always have a flip-flop handy....