The Cockroach Wars Part 4

[This is an update report. From part 3, "Then I understood why these filthy creatures were so arrogant. They hadn't been beaten yet."]

As issues foment about us; draughts and the threat of Swine Flu, and arguments over where people may and may not live, and peace talks silenced by failures to agree on anything, leading to an impending nuclear threat from a neighboring country, which has its own internal problems, and in the midst of all this the defense minister focuses only on destroying Jewish outposts.

Is it any wonder that cockroaches of all ages walk with swaggers and bravado wherever their feet happen to take them in my apartment?

Well, if the Ministry of Defense is so tied up, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands. And I did.

Yesterday, just after the karaoke guy finished his concert, I saw a young adult sized cockroach mosey over toward the window like it owned the place. As it sat an the window sill, supposedly admiring the trash heap that the city had left a month ago, I came up from behind. And with a flick of my bare finger, I sent that cockroach into orbit.

No sooner had I launched one cockroach, but I saw another right on the kitchen counter. Usually a cup of water sends such intruders floating down into the sink and down the drain. But not this one.

He had muscular legs – 7 of them. Legend has it that he won his 7th leg in a dual. But that story is not for here.

That big muscular cockroach slowly and methodically walked right up to the table top where I worked. As his head came over the horizon, I sent a swift in-to-out karate punch that swivelled that roach’s head like a top.

Haven’t heard from that cockroach since.

The Cockroach Wars Part 3

The Noose Is Naught

by Jerry Waxman

[This is an update report. Previously, I had become frustrated with the behaviors of domestic cockroaches so much that I reached into an arsenal of inventions I had once collected to rid the house of these pests. The first weapon was a noose. I tied a string to the back of a refrigerator, and lay the noose end on the floor. When a cockroach would step into the noose and keep walking, it would literally hang itself. That was the plan.]

The next morning: I looked behind the refrigerator. There was no cockroach in the noose. It looked as though no cockroach had even been there. Yet they had been in other parts of the apartment – including right there in the kitchen.

Even as I stood next to the refrigerator, a teenage sized cockroach trotted arrogantly toward me and sat down in front of me, looking at the noose for a few seconds. It scampered away when it noticed me raising my foot. But the little delinquent didn’t disappear without letting me know that he and his friends were laughing at me.

The arrogance of teen cockroaches! Laughing at me in my own kitchen . . . I let it go.

This evening I checked again behind the refrigerator. A king of swishing noise had aroused my curiosity. Sure enough, there was a big cockroach. It had encountered The NOOSE!

The big cockroach had crawled up the string just above the noose’s knot. He was swinging, not hanging. Standing above the knot he was swinging like a pendulum, as smaller cockroaches looked on and cheered. Using the string’s leverage – true to trapeze artistry – the giant cockroach maneuvred himself to a place high up on the refrigerator. From there he observed as the younger cockroaches took turns swinging on the string.

Again the cheers and jeers of the gang of youthful, hooligan cockroaches followed me to an adjoining small room, where I found a bottle of floor cleaner, and started shaking it like a can of Raid. The cockroaches suddenly disappeared. They can’t read. They couldn’t even see that the bottle I had was empty.

They haven’t won this war yet… Stay tuned.

Meanwhile the city of Sderot has usurped my job. I had spent weeks with a garden hoe and rake to dig out all the thorns from the yards surrounding my block. The front yard looks pretty good.

And I had amassed all the layers of thorns and trash and rubbish that people had thrown there over the years into a massive heap. Thought about burning it, but the fire department wouldn’t allow it.

The city sent a team with a tractor. They cleared out all the thorns and bristles from the yards I hadn’t gotten to. There is even a little basketball court – sans basket – that they unearthed; a relic of an earlier age in this city.

Now there is a much larger heap in the back yard. The city of Sderot may take it away someday. But until they do, I am sure it serves as a fortress for cockroaches and the like who send their scouts and troops to my apartment when they see the opportunity.

Perhaps the city would like the honor of usurping my other job – making a better cockroach noose.