The older I get, the more opportunities I have to say, “I told you so,” but I’ve never been the kind of person who enjoys an I-told-you-so triumph.

On this particular occasion, I sat cross-legged on the floor for the nightly ritual of brushing our three border collies’ teeth. Alby, my husband, came in from the back yard with Roo, the puppy. Roo flew from the doorway and hit the bed, plowing the comforter up to the pillows. Panting, he scanned his audience for applause.

As Alby crossed the dimly lit room, a piece of his head came loose. Dark, it floated slowly past the dark bookcase.

I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. A bat? A moth? Moscas volantes or “flying flies?” Medically called myodesopsias, colloquially “floaters,” this eyeball debris is why I can freak myself out thinking about how eyeballs see inside themselves. It’s also a sign of retinal detachment.

Speaking of detachment, the self-propelled chunk of marital scalp flew too slowly and silently to be anything alive outside my skull. It had my full attention.

---

 When I was about ten years old, I learned there were four billion humans on Earth.

I accepted that as a static and forever fact, like insects have six legs, and arachnids eight.

According to the Worldometer, fifty years later, we’ve got double the humans. As I type, there are 8,113,088,862 people on Earth.

By the time you read this, you’ll be nostalgic for the days when there were only 8,113,088,862 ordering Amazon Day Delivery.

The floating bit of Alby’s skull came to rest on the wall next to our headboard. I liked what it did to the space. We’ve been in the house a decade, and I haven’t finished decorating.

Somehow, even without part of his head, Alby kept talking. “Roo’s poop’s pretty solid. I think you can feed him more.”

As I brushed Mick’s teeth, the detached hunk of my husband’s head assumed the shape of a Florida cockroach, aka. “palmetto bug,” because the bug’s as big as your open hand.

Supposedly the largest recorded palmetto bug was two-and-a-half-inches, but I can accurately report every one I’ve ever seen is much, much, much bigger.

Some are the size of a flipflop.

And a flipflop won’t kill them.

---

Most of my friends on Facebook are dog lovers. Every few days, one of them announces she killed a Cuban tree frog.

Or a cane toad. Or a green iguana. Or a European sparrow.

 In the comments someone always takes the bait, “Oh, but why?”

“They’re invasive,” the executioners explain. I’ve done it myself. I once killed a cane toad.

As soon as I recognized it, I called it, “Cockroach!”

When it flew, however, it didn’t buzz like maracas and slap the wall the way palmetto bugs usually do. This one flew slowly, gently, and soundlessly, like a roach ghost. It didn’t make sense.

“It flew off your head,” I said.

“I thought I felt something on my neck,” Alby mused. “I’ll kill it.”

At the word “neck” I thought “vampire.” I stood up. I wasn’t even finished brushing Maisie’s teeth. “Don’t touch it! It’s unholy!”

I don’t normally say things like “unholy.” I didn’t recognize myself.

Alby didn’t recognize me either. He rubbed his neck where he still felt its legs. “It’s just a cockroach.”

“Vampires are shapeshifters,” I said. I know almost nothing about vampires.

He reached for the weapon he keeps behind the bed, a portable bug zapper disguised as a tennis racket.

“Don’t kill it,” I pleaded.

Maisie ran to my side.

 “It’s too big to kill,” I said. “It’s a grandmother cockroach, the repository of its people’s wisdom. She’s earned the right to mercy.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding,” I said. “Okay, I’m partly kidding.”

“Well, what do you want me to do with it then?” Alby waved his electric tennis racket, worthless if he had nothing to zap.

Roo raced out of the room carrying a stolen sock.

The dog, by the way, is the third most invasive species worldwide.

Worldwide the second-most invasive species is the cat.

Number one is the rat.

Humans aren’t even on the list, in the same way that, back in the eighties, Penn State didn’t make Playboy’s top-ten list of party schools because, as I remember, Penn State was “in a league of its own.”

The cockroach as big as the bowl of a serving spoon hung on the wall as if I’d nailed it there. I really do need something in that spot.

“We should catch and release it,” I said. “If she doesn’t return her to her people, they’ll rise up against us.”

Roo hit the bed as if shot from a cannon and shook what was left of my sock.

Mick, the oldest border collie, let out a groan. He lay with his back to the room, his head on the bolster of his orthopedic dog bed, snoot in the air. He’s never had time for everyone else’s nonsense.

Alby didn’t have time for my nonsense. He raised his tennis racket.

“Nobody listens to me,” I said. “And then they’re sorry.”

Maisie and I ran for the walk-in closet. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears. Maisie leaned against me to steady me.

The Florida panther is the native creature most beloved around here, maybe because we only have about two hundred left. I bet we didn’t love them a hundred years ago when there were a lot more of them and we were still picking our way to the outhouse in the dark.

Besides habitat loss to Chik-Fil-A, the number one danger to panthers is that we love cars more than panthers. So far this year thirteen panthers have been killed on Florida roadways, which is an increase, but biologists say that’s a good thing—it means we have more panthers to run over.

Each year Florida cars also kill about 800 humans, so . . . by this math we’re doing A-okay.

Alby pulled the sheet up to his shoulders, I brushed Maisie’s teeth, Roo waited his turn, and the cockroach marched back up the wall.

The lights were on. The air conditioning was on. That is not normal cockroach behavior. They’re nocturnal. They’re photophobic. They hate air conditioning. They’re from the order Blattodea which is derived from the Latin blatta, which means “light-shunning insect.” They seek dark, warm, humid hiding places full of other cockroaches. Cockroaches are social. They recognize their own kin. They share food. They clean themselves. They care for their young.

Isolated from their colony, they die of loneliness.

“Look!” I cried. “It understands what I’m saying. It’s walking right out in the light. That’s practically waving a white flag.”

Mick groaned and rolled his eyes.

A moment later, Alby leaned into the closet.

I uncovered my ears and looked up.

He said, “Do you have another pillowcase?”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously.” He stepped aside. “Come look.”

The white page of my pillow case was scribbled with cockroach guts like so much black ink, mighty but unheeded, mute.

From the great white apex predator came no apology. After all, the dogs were in their beds, and tomorrow was a workday.

So time and laundry rolled on, gliding on the long coattails of civilization.