I'm living with cockroaches.

I thought that moving into the city and up to the 21st floor of a building would get me away from the bugs. I was wrong.

It was the end of July when I saw the first one. I was getting ready to leave for work, making breakfast in my kitchen when I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look over and see this HUGE thing twitching on my floor. It took about .5 seconds to register it was a cockroach. The most important thing in this situation was to remain calm. I needed to get out the door as to not be late, the cockroach could not be left alive, and there was no one else around to save me.

Lucky for me, the cockroach was upside down so it couldn't run away. I grabbed my can of Raid (for spiders and scorpions, but it worked just fine) and sprayed it. It twitched and tried to run away, but since it was upside down, it just ended up sliding around the floor. I captured it under a bowl and left.

I told the desk attendant at my complex that there was a cockroach in my apartment, and asked if they could get rid of it. I think he felt really bad for me, and asked some guy who looked like a custodian if he could take care of it. He said yes, and later that day when I got home from work there was no cockroach and my bowl was back on my counter.

Five days later, I almost got into my bathtub with another one. A not-so-gentle reminder to always, always, always check the tub for monsters before stepping in. This one wasn't quite as big as the first one, but still pretty big and disgusting. I washed it down the drain.

I googled it later, which was a huge mistake, because I ran into a bunch of pest control websites that said if you see one cockroach in your home there's probably a million more living in your walls and that one just got pushed out because there were too many. Cue the panic. I also found out that cockroaches have trouble balancing on slick surfaces, like kitchen tile, and can flip over easily on them. I'm assuming that was how the first one ended up on its back.

Then I did what any person living in fear would do. I armed myself with a dangerous weapon.

I also told my apartment complex and they called the bug people to come spray. The bug people came just a few days later and I went for about two weeks without seeing another one.

Then, just as I thought I was safe, they struck again. I was scanning the shower for monsters before stepping in one morning when I noticed a tiny little black thing. Upon closer inspection, I saw it had little legs and giant antennas. It was a little baby cockroach.

That means there was a cockroach nest somewhere in my walls.

They were having babies.

They are creating an army.

The cockroaches are after me.

I quickly washed it down the drain, but when I came home from work that afternoon there were MORE and one of them was in my LOOFA. A cockroach! In my loofa! So I drenched my shower in Raid and now I throughly spray my entire apartment every morning. I also replaced my loofa.

It's currently been about a week and a half since the last cockroach sighting. But they are probably hiding out in my walls, just waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking. If I mysteriously go missing one day, it was probably the roaches.

Water does not always put out fire.

My household has a mess problem, especially when it comes to the kitchen. Our drip pans always have weird stuff in them, whether it's crumbs or spillage or anything else. They had gotten bad enough that we were sort of talking about replacing them, but no one really wanted to (including me).

Well, one morning (afternoon, technically) I stood in the kitchen and began to prepare myself a breakfast taco. I put my delicious turkey bacon in the pan and turned on the stove. It normally smokes a little bit as the pan gets hot, but this time it started smoking way more than normal. I was a few steps away preparing the egg when I noticed there might be a slight problem.

And then, BOOM. FIRE.

Everything that happened next is sort of a blur, but I remember the fire alarm went off, I started screaming and freaking out and then my roommates began freaking out with me. The poor dog was very scared. I needed to stop the fire before the whole apartment burned down, so I grabbed a nearby cup, filled it with water and dumped it on the fire.

No. Everything I have ever learned about water being the opposite of fire was wrong. Apparently, water actually makes fire worse (or grease fires, anyway). Why did it take 21 years for me to learn this?

My roommate saved the day after she got a washcloth wet and then tossed it over the fire, causing it to go out. I did know that fire can't exist without oxygen, so I'm glad that piece of information is still true. The whole incident lasted approximately 20 seconds and nothing was damaged. Not even my bacon!

We have since replaced the drip pans.

I am Buzzfeed worthy.

I was trying to schedule a meeting for a class project, listening to everyone list off their availability and what meetings or jobs they had during times when someone else was free, while also trying to fit in a time in my own busy schedule, when I thought to myself, "Hmm. This would make a great Buzzfeed list."

And so I wrote 13 Signs You Are Chronically Over-Scheduled.

I wrote the article one night (while I was supposed to be working) and woke up to a lovely email the next morning notifying me that the community team noticed my post and it was getting some extra promotion around the site. It was a dream come true! My list was a featured post on the community page and not long after I won the 1,000 views award.

Things only went up from there as I saw my list get shared all over Facebook and Twitter. In the afternoon I got an email that my post made it to the front page of buzzfeed.com. Front page! Of the MAIN site!

That's me, that's me!!!

That was probably the coolest thing to happen to me in awhile. My friend texted me later that evening to inform me she saw my post shared from one of her friends who goes to another school via her friend. My post went viral!

Now, a few days later, traffic is starting to die down a little bit (and by die down, I mean it's currently getting around 500 views every hour), and the post has more than 100,000 views and nearly 70,000 views just from Facebook alone. 

Time to brainstorm some more genius ideas!

Always keep a pair of gloves in the car.

I woke up one normal winter day, went to the gym, ate breakfastlunch and then headed off to work. The sun was shining and the temperature was pretty average for the season (somewhere around 35-40 degrees). The extent of my outside time was pretty much 20 steps from home to car and then 20 more steps from car to work, so I only wore my light heavy jacket.

Heaviness of my jacket depends on the season. I have a light jacket for temperatures in the 60-range, a heavy light jacket for temperatures a little cooler in the 50-range, a light heavy jacket for temperatures falling into the 40-range, a heavy jacket for temperatures falling to freezing, and anything below that usually calls for two or more jackets. It's a science.

Anyway, I went to work and did my job. During my shift, though, some snow storm just rolls through. It started out as ice then turned into snow and it got super cold. After my shift, I went out to my car and this is what awaited me:

It was pretty cool because no one had left yet so it was all freshly fallen snow. This would have been totally fine except under all this snow was a layer of ice.

My car was completely frozen. Literally. I couldn't even open it because it was frozen. I had to ask one of the guys I was working with to come help me pry open my door. Once I got it open I had to figure out where my ice scraper was. Usually I keep it in my backseat but it wasn't there. For a minute I thought I had lost it, but it was just in the trunk. The next challenge was scraping off the ice. It's already pretty much the worst thing ever, but it's even worse when you're not bundled up and you have no gloves.

It took a really long time to get all the ice off. The whole time snow was falling all over my hands so when it was finally clear enough to drive my hands were basically frozen and I couldn't really hold the steering wheel. The next day I put a pair of gloves in the glove box (haha, punny!) so I will always be prepared to scrape ice off my car.

The dentist is the epitome of evil.

This story goes way back to the year 2007. I was a sophomore in high school and I went to the dentist for my regularly scheduled teeth cleaning. Back then I still lived at home and my mother was able to force me to go to the dentist for these cleanings twice a year, as recommended. This particular appointment went great and they said my teeth looked fine and sent me on my way.

But then, two days later, I got a terrible toothache and had to go back. Turns out, I needed a root canal. Awesome. Thanks Dr. Dentist for catching that the first time around. I'm convinced he put something in my mouth and caused this to happen. They referred me over to Dr. Root Canal and he confirmed I was in need of a root canal. So he drills up my teeth and the whole thing was pretty miserable.

All was well until the end of this summer as I was saying my goodbyes to the wonderful city of London. I only had three days left of my fabulous study abroad experience and I got the worst toothache ever. At first I just thought it was a cavity, but then it got really bad and the pain consumed my every thought. My mom called the dentist who told her it was probably an infection, so my last day in London was spent in agony in the urgent care center as I waited for antibiotics.

To give you an idea of how much pain I was in, just think about the worst pain you've ever experienced and multiply that by 10. I'm surprised I didn't overdose on Excedrin. The pain meds I got from the London doctor helped, but it was still the worst pain I've ever experienced. Once I got back to the States I went to Dr. Dentist who confirmed this was an infection and referred me back to Dr. Root Canal.

Duct tape dresses are very uncomfortable.

My friend and I decided we wanted to make duct tape dresses to wear to the first football game of the season. It ended up raining and I had to work, so we just pushed it back to the second game of the season (but our first conference game!) against Georgia.

They looked great, but all I have to say about it is never again.

We made the dresses a few days before the game and neither of us had ever done it before. Turns out we did it wrong.

Camping is much more enjoyable with a tent.

The MU vs. kU basketball game is always a huge deal, but this year it was even bigger. Since we're moving the SEC, we'll no longer be in the same conference as kU and they won't play us anymore. So, this year was the last year in a long time that we'll play kU at home. On top of that, ESPN's College Gameday came out to cover our game.

People started lining up at Mizzou arena Wednesday night. The show didn't start until Saturday morning.

Disclaimer: This picture was actually taken Friday night, though most of these tents were up by Thursday morning

My friend and I arrived around 10 p.m. Friday night. We were nine hours early but still significantly far back in line. Our plan, which was decided way back in December, was to just wait around on the sidewalk until the show started. But then mother nature decided this would be a great time for a rainy weekend. Our new plan was now to just wait around on the sidewalk with umbrellas and ponchos. This worked out well for the first 15 minutes, but then we got tired and wanted to sit down. The ground was pretty wet, so we used our problem solving skills and set out a poncho to sit on.

This worked out great for the next 15 minutes until it started to rain again and the poncho got wet and the realization that we still had to wait around for eight hours sunk in. We put our problem solving skills to work again and decided the only way to survive was to go get a tent.

We got the people in line next to us to watch our spots and we loaded up into the car and drove to Walmart. It felt so great to be in a warm, dry environment. Once at Walmart, we headed back to the camping section and found the tents. Luckily for us, the cheapest one was an affordable $35. Except there were none on the shelf. The next cheapest tent was $70, which was way too expensive, so this $35 tent was really our only option. 

We asked the sales associate and she went into the back to look for the cheap tent. The two minutes she was in the back were excruciatingly suspenseful. If they didn't have one, we'd have to suffer in the rainy cold all night. Or drive to all the other Walmart's in town to find the tent.

It must have been our lucky day, because they had one! Several actually. She came back with quite a few boxes. We drove back to Mizzou Arena and pitched our tent in about 10 minutes.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea as us (except they didn't wait until they were already in line to go get one), because we were just one of about 13 identical $35 Walmart tents. The night got significantly better as we enjoyed camping inside of our nice, dry, semi-warm tent. We got delicious cheese pizza and even managed to get about an hour of sleep.

The morning (aka 5 a.m.) rolled around and it was finally almost time for Gameday! Someone, I'm assuming the coordinators of the event, came to knock on our tent and tell us to pack it up so we could actually stand in a real line, rather than a conglomeration of tents. 

My friend and I weren't going to the actual basketball game, so we got to line up in the line for people just wanting to attend Gameday. The other line was for students who wanted priority seating for the actual game as well as Gameday. My line was much, much, much shorter than the other line, since most students were going to actual game. Despite coming to wait in line 2 days later than most students, we got great seats! We were only about five seats from the center section, and only about four rows from the front.

Gameday was super fun, my sign made it on national television and we beat kU! All around great experience, and now I have a tent for the next time I camp out for something.

Shopping carts are incredibly efficient for moving.

I moved out of my apartment and just across the complex to a new building. It's about a 15 second drive, so it seemed kind of excessive to take all my stuff from my apartment, walk to my car, put it in my car, drive my car to the new building, take all my stuff from my car and carry it into my new apartment.

My parents suggested using a shopping cart, so that way I could take my stuff directly from my apartment and bring it straight to my new one (almost, since it was on the second floor). At first I thought it was completely ridiculous.

But it was totally genius. By using a shopping cart, I wouldn't have to put all my stuff in boxes to carry to my car and then carry right back inside again. I could just pile a bunch of stuff into this shopping cart. Easy! Plus I save gas, the environment AND get exercise! Efficient! 

So I walked over to the grocery store that's right across the street and borrowed a shopping cart. (Thanks, HyVee!) It was super awkward taking it home with me. Probably one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. I had to cross over a busy street just pushing a shopping cart by myself and I think everyone was judging and/or laughing at me. But it was totally worth it.

Once moving day arrived, I loaded up my shopping cart and pushed it over. Other people were moving in too, and I got a few funny looks until people realized that this was actually pure genius. While they had to keep going back and forth from their car to their apartment, and when you're carrying a bunch of stuff the walk from the parking lot to the door is kind of long, I wheeled my cart right up to the stairs. I even got some compliments!

I successfully got everything from point A to point B in just three easy trips (plus two trips in my car for the really big boxes that wouldn't fit in the cart). Which is awesome because I seem to have somehow accumulated an excess of things.

I avoided the awkward walk back to the grocery store to return the cart because two of my friends that helped me move agreed to go with me. Things are always less weird when you're not alone. The shopping cart idea even made unpacking easier since most things were not taken apart or thrown into a box and mixed with a bunch of other random things.

I guess my parents do have good ideas sometimes.

You can't use liquid dish soap in the dishwasher.

Oops.

I had just moved out of the dorms and into my very first apartment, so I was lacking a lot of things normal people have in their homes. Like dishes and dishwasher soap. In fact, I went through the whole summer and majority of fall semester with only one plate (that one orange one in the dishwasher). Luckily the apartments I moved into had inhabitants already so I was able to use their dishes until I inherited my own.

Anyway, the dishwasher was getting full and I was almost out of dishes to use so I had to run it. While living in the dorms I had a meal plan so I usually ate in the dinning hall. When I did have dishes to wash, I just did them by hand in the bathroom sink. In fact, I believe this experience was the first time I had ever used a dishwasher without parental supervision. I had dawn liquid dish soap from my dishwashing days in the dorms, but nothing else, and so I was like, 'Okay, dish soap! I hope this works!'

It didn't. The mess got even worse and I ended up having to mop the whole floor with it. Which wasn't working out very well for me because I didn't have a real mop so I was using a Swifter. So after this I went out to the dollar store and picked up some real dishwasher detergent.

Lesson learned.