Hadn't seen roaches until boot camp, actually! Then they sent me to Mississippi, where they grow several inches long, and FLY! Ugh, ugh, ugh.
When my family first moved down to Florida (Palm Beach) from Chicago back in '79 (I was 7), a HUGE roach flew into my hair.
My mom had sprayed it and we all though it would drop down and die. Nope. It came at me and started its death throes in my hair (which was almost waist-length at the time). I nearly fainted and couldn't breathe until my dad showed me the corpse on the floor bashed to a pulp.
Something similar happened about a month ago when I was up at 5AM with my baby. A big sucker was on the kitchen counter and I gathered my courage and sprayed it. It took off flying straight at me and I tripped over the stroller and leanded on the ground sreaming "My baby!". Everyone woke up running thinking it was a burglar. Instead they find me prone on the floor, clinging to the stroller's back wheels, sobbing hysterically, with a dying roach about 3 feet away on the ground.
LOL! I just got through telling our daughter about the house Sir SuziQ lived in when he was going to college in my hometown. It was a house rented from my great-aunt, and in the back of her house on the alley. I went over one night and he told me to be real quiet and follow him outside. He got a flashlight, and we walked around to his back door where there was a little porch overhang. He turned on the flashlight, and there were three BIG old roaches sitting up on the supports just waiting!! He said they would fly in over his shoulder whenever he opened the back door! AARGH I hate roaches!!