Roaches fly to Jupiter

Because Memorial Day weekend is drawing to a close and I didn't do anything of note, I figure that this is a good time to look inward.

I despise nothing on this earth as much as cockroaches. Nothing can bring out such violent hatred, disdain, and respect, as my formidable enemy, the cockroach.

It is impossible for me to hate anything, even a plotting, scheming human being as much as I hate the cockroach. Cockroaches will survive a nuclear fallout. Humans, obviously, will not. This only serves to fan my hatred, and set cockroaches aside as invincible creatures, an Other.

They are resourceful little fuckers. How many nights have I woken up to get a drink of water, when, only to turn on the kitchen light, I see a cockroach scurrying out of the sink and into some crack in the wall before I can do anything about it! (And how sleepiness instantly gives way to a wide-awake anger.) How many times have I, having actually caught one and tried flushing it down the toilet, found it, within seconds, scurrying up the side of the toilet wall, valiantly fighting for survival! Friends, they do not lie on their back shaking their little legs like other insects -- if they see a way out and they pursue it.

I'm not a dirty person. I'm pretty sure that my filthy existence is neutralized by my obsessively sanitary girlfriend. But still. They are everywhere. It is war.

1. They are not stupid. I am terrified of all insects in the same way that Edmund Burke writes how the bark of dogs and wolves is sublimely terrifying. But cockroaches, intelligent little fuckers, amplify terror. Cockroaches can outsmart the your average human. Flies will keep crashing their little head and their even littler brains into walls or light fixtures. Ladybugs that occasionally fly into your home are stupid. Mosquitos and moths are slow. Cockroaches, au contraire, know when you've turned on the light and aim to put it out of its misery. They move faster than you. They are like pigeons. They err on the side of caution. When a light goes on while they're making a Thanksgiving feast out of your dirty dishes, they haul-ass to the nearest exit.

2. Cockroaches, according to many late night research sessions (I am often unable to sleep after finding out that they have invaded my home), can survive on the sugar on a postage stamp or the nutrients (?) on your toothbrush. The point is, you can keep your home immaculately clean, but they can always lick your mother#$%^&**-ing toothbrush! That goes in your mouth! They carry disease.

3. Given their intelligence, cockroaches are self-servingly tempered by a resilient ignorance. A totalitarian dictator can kill a human being as an example, scaring dissidents from uprising. A dead cockroach, however is not deterred from the sight of a dead comrade. They will blindly continue their pursuit of your tootbrush.

4. A cockroach can fly. It has wings. Most of the roaches found in the home are merely peripatetic. But others can fly! Humans can not fly. You cannot compete with an intelligent insect that also has the gift of flight.

5. Roaches will outlive humans. By my lay understanding, a nuclear bomb just burns through humans, instantly turning them to ash. A bright, white heat that is so hot, can, like a photograph, burn your image into stone at the moment of annhilation. There are shadows permanently burned into stones in Hiroshima from this instantaneous white-hot death. A cockroach, however, like the Hulk, will only be strengthened by these radioactive rays. They will be stronger and bigger. We will all be dead, but giant cockroaches will still roam the earth, presumably, looking for toothbrushes, crumbs, or, postage stamps.

A memorable SNL skit for me is the fake-commercial for a trap that tortures, in a medieval way, the cockroaches that are unfortunate enough to enter. But they are, still, invincible:

They are faster and too cautious;
Need too little to survive; and
Will outlive us for eons.

We don't need to get Osama bin Laden. We need to get rid of the roaches. Oh yeah, and OJ Simpson.