When I was maybe 5 years old, I had learned to bathe myself, and wash my own hair.

One evening I was getting ready to wash my hair, when I noticed that in the corner of the bathroom, on the tiled floor adjacent to the bathtub, was a pile of tiny black pebbles. I wasn’t sure what they were, so I called for my mother. She walked by the bathroom (the door was open) and took a look, and told me ‘those were cockroach eggs’.

Cockroach eggs? Cockroaches! I jumped back, disgusted and afraid. Images of tiny cockroaches squirming in the little black eggs immediately flashed into my head. My fear was apparent. My mother snapped saying ‘they’re just cockroach eggs!’ and then she told me to put my left foot on them.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Suppose I put my foot on them and crush the eggs, and thousands of tiny cockroaches swarm over my foot! I looked at my mother, in panic and unable to speak.

My mother demanded that I put my foot on the eggs. She was my mother and therefore she was to be obeyed, so I held my breath and put my foot on the little eggs and could feel the little pebbles underneath my left foot.

The eggs thankfully did not burst open as I had imagined. My mother seemed satisfied and left. I continued my shower, but I still remember how the roach eggs felt underneath my foot.