I’ve been terrified of roaches for years, so imagine my horror when I see one in my dorm room while I’m getting ready for bed. (Granted, it was the size of my toe, but you understand the extent of my phobia.) It’s the first time I’ve seen a bug since I moved into my dorm, and I didn’t have any bug spray so I decided to use my limited resources to attempt to kill it.

All I really learned from my experience is how NOT to kill a bug.

1. Don’t throw shoes at it. 9 out of 10 times you’ll miss, and only end up angering the beast. To make it even worse, your shoe is now a hostage.

2. Don’t spray it with hairspray. It seemed like a perfect plan to me, because I know that I almost die whenever I breathe in too much hairspray. Unfortunately it was still alive, but its hair looked outstanding.

3. Don’t run. They can smell fear. As soon as you start to doubt yourself, they move in for the kill. After the shoes and the hairspray didn’t work, the roach built some confidence and decided to charge (i.e. crawl towards me at 0.5 miles per hour). I’d like to say I held my ground and stomped him out, but in reality I ran out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

4. Don’t resort to throwing a cup of rubbing alcohol on it. Sure, it works (really well actually), but then you have to explain to your roommate why the bathroom is covered in rubbing alcohol. And take it from me, the room will smell like it for at least 2 days.

Moral of the story: when you’re getting ready to move out -- whether it be to a dorm, sorority/fraternity house, or an apartment of your own -- invest in some bug killing spray, or just grow up (unlike me) and stomp on the thing. There’s nothing that makes you realize how unprepared you are for the real world than struggling to kill a little bug, so save your ego and don’t make the same mistakes I did.