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“I am confident that following a nuclear holocaust, the cockroach would be the only organism left standing.” — Albert Einstein
We as humans can tolerate pretty much anything God and nature can throw at us. But to me, there is nothing quite as terrifying as a cockroach fluttering onto my bed sheet in the black of night. Plop! And then the real problem starts when you turn on the lights and cannot locate the insect.
Or a cockroach chasing you around the kitchen in the middle of the night while you are drinking a glass of milk. Or, and I am not making this up, a virtual army of cockroaches scurrying toward you at a cheap Florida hotel (more on that later).
Roaches are akin to the Blattodae insect family and are causally related to termites. (I would settle for termites every time.) A roach cannot bite or sting and yet we humans will literally sprint to the next zip code to escape this evil, disgusting plague of an insect. Then there is the mystery of identifying which species, as if we give a crap. According to Wikipedia, there are over 60 categories of roaches. So what. It is a roach for crying out loud!
How many times have we discharged copious amounts of insect spray into a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, etc., and left it that way for hours…finally marshaling the nerve to open the door? And even then, roaches have a propensity of croaking in a hiding place that takes forever to finally find it, after moving furniture, ransacking closets and the like. Or avoiding roaches by shutting a bathroom, bedroom, living room, garage or car door to securely barricade the insect from attacking us. Or in extreme cases, shutting yourself outside of your own home to avoid a confrontation with them.
Let’s face it humans, they are never going away no matter the precautions we take. How can you prevent a roach from getting into your house when it can compress its body to the width of a graham cracker, effortlessly slipping through a state-of-the art storm-resistant window or door – a virtual Houdini of the insect world.
I vividly remember as a boy living in humid South Miami, turning up the fans at night to staunch the sound of flying roaches. Like me, we Floridians all have vivid memories of roach encounters over the years. Like my wife, Sandy, who was lounging quietly with her siblings back when she was a teenager. With her arms stretched out over the sofa, a roach flew into her right armpit. For an hour, she kept her arm clamped shut, for fear of the creature crawling down her side or pouncing on a nearby sibling. Eventually, after the laughter subsided, she opened her arm and roach scampered away. And so did they!
Or the time Sandy and I spent a weekend at Dayton Beach when she was at the University of Florida and I was a cub reporter for the Gainesville Sun. We were basically broke, as usual, so the only hotel we could afford was at the “shantytown” end of the famous Daytona Beach Strip.
As soon as we bedded down for the night, the roaches began stirring. Turning on the lights, there were dozens of the beasties crawling all over the bed and walls. Frantically packing, leaving my shoes behind, we launched ourselves out the door, but the coast was not quite clear. On the sidewalk was a phalanx of roaches marching towards us. We quickly outflanked them and raced to our car for a clean getaway back to G’ville.
It amazes me how we are so petrified over a harmless bug. So, I recently embarked on a mission to be at peace with these malevolent insects once and for all. Because, let’s face it, they are not going anywhere anytime soon – especially in South Florida.
So, after all these decades living in terror, I decided to salvage my manhood by literally befriending a cockroach. To begin, I needed to name the said roach and decided on “Phil.”
If you are going to have a pet, whether dog, cat, parakeet, fish or, yes, even a roach, he/she deserves a catchy name. Besides, Phil was my best neighborhood friend growing up.
Second, I needed to ensure that Phil would be properly housed, so I purchased an animal cage roomy enough for a large insect. Then I set out to capture a suitable Phil. This was the hard part, having to actually handle an insect that I have despised for over six decades.
Initially, I needed to overcome my dread of cornering and then grasping a roach in my hand. Yuk! To quell this fear, I needed to convince myself that Phil would be my pet for life and, more importantly, irreversibly extinguish my fear of roaches. How wonderful it would be to finally live in tranquil peace. Through Phil, I would never launch myself skyward when a roach disrupted my space.
Fast forward several months, most of which were conjuring up the courage to actually capture and keep a cockroach, our relationship has leveled off somewhat. I am now spending the majority of my retirement enjoying Phil. He has also become somewhat tame, like racing up and down my leg when he’s hungry or showing insect love to tickling my cheek with his feelers while I’m sleeping. We go on walks, eat lunch and dinner (he’s a fat little guy), and take naps together. Or sometimes I give him a backrub.
Only problem is I haven’t seen my wife for a month!
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