An Intruder

Last night at my unusual 1:30 am feeding of miss Stella, I was joined by an unwelcome guest. You see, people have been warning me about the flying cockroaches of the south, but I never really believed they existed. I always figured people would not live where there were 2 inch cockroaches that flew...it just wouldn't happen. Well when we got out here - I was told that they really do exist. This freaked me out for a couple of days, but then when I didn't see any, I figured - who cares if there are flying cockroaches if you never see them. Then I saw one. A dead one in the cultural hall at church while I was standing in the back bouncing Stella to keep her quiet. About 2 inches long, and lying on its back, it looked absolutely disgusting. Two days later while visiting a couple in our complex, I noticed a second disgusting cockroach, or palmetto bug as they are called around here. Luckily, it also lie lifeless on its back. So with all these spottings only taking place with dead bugs, I again thought it couldn't be that bad.
While sitting Indian style, (luckily), on my couch last night, attempting to quiet and feed my little angel, out from underneath the couch crawls a palmetto bug - thank heavens for the crawling part. Had it decided to fly out I may have had a heart-attack. I ran towards the bedroom door where Andy was sleeping soundly. Knowing he had a tough day of school ahead, I couldn't wake him. I watched the little monster like a hawk as it crawled across my floor and then under a comforter we had drying on our chair. As long as it stayed under that blanket, I thought I would be ok. Minutes later, I heard laughing and honking outside, so I walked to the peep hole to spy. While standing there with Stella, peering into the stairwell, suddenly I felt something on my head. I screamed and ran towards the bedroom, only to find Andy jumping from bed in a panic and running towards me.
"It's not a big deal, It's not a big deal", I reassured him as tears began streaming down my face. Stella stared up at me with wide awake eyes, that unfortunately had been softly shut just seconds before. Andy looked so confused.
"There is a palmetto bug, and it crawled under the blanket, and something just hit my head!" Andy brought me in close to calm me down, and then walked towards the blanket with a cup in hand. After searching for a couple of minutes, finally the palmetto bug thought it appropriate to make a run for it, and came out into clear view, where Andy, with ninja like reflexes trapped the little bugger.
"Should I throw him outside or flush him?", Andy asked.
"FLUSH HIM!"