The United States Congress has declared next month as ‘Cockroach Awareness Month,’ with an initial designation of 1 billion dollars to preserve, protect, and promote their existence. Banners, with gigantic pictures of the creatures, will be posted in upper-income areas of every major city.
Why, you might ask, in upscale areas? Because high income areas of the US have been known to stamp out, or squash cockroaches, while the rest of America and the world has learned to live with these little critters.
It has taken many years for our political leaders to acknowledge the necessity and superiority of the “lowly” cockroach. Various other insects, such as mosquitoes, lice, ticks, and scorpions have been honored, so why not the cockroach?
A cockroach is among the most primitive of the living Neoopteran insects. Fossil evidence indicates that some 300 million years ago our ancestors considered them as pets and allowed them to wander throughout their caves. However, in the early 17th century the Spanish named such creatures the cucaracha, and wrote a song about them, even as they harmed them. Before that other cultures imply referred to cockroaches as “crawling bugs.”
Some scientists believe that the cockroach is related to the alligator and hippopotamus. The hard shell of the former is compared to the think skins of the reptiles and seems to prove this relationship. One of the most extant species of the alligator is the Chinese alligator and it resembles the giant cockroaches still found among the cracks of the Great Wall of China.
What should one do to honor cockroaches on “their” month? Congress and the FBI have issued several ways to preserve and encourage the species, such as:
· Not wearing pointed shoes during the month. Pointed shoes have been lethal in trapping roaches in the corner of a room and crippling them
· Not spraying any insecticides in their vicinity. Although the poisons do not usually kill the roaches, they have been known to explode and send little tummy roaches into the atmosphere
· Trying to raise one as a pet. It will be grateful and lick every utensil in your kitchen
· Hiding away your roach traps for the month. Remember the government slogan, “Every Home Needs a Roach”
To further honor Roach Month, the government has commissioned well-known artists to paint their portraits on walls, roof tops, and billboards. However, this decree has already caused some problems. In Gun Barrel City, Texas, a giant billboard had a painting with 23 roaches in various charming positions. However, local residents began shooting at them with Kalashnikov’s automatic rifles (aka AK) and their 7.62x39mm cartridges. After three days there was nothing left of the billboard and the FBI descended upon the area to arrest the gunners. Instead, they found only giant limping cockroaches.
Scientists have also found that cockroaches survived the Chernobyl meltdown and have evolved a new species. Instead of the flattened, brownish, fast-running insect with long, slender antennae, the Chernobyl species, know commonly as the “Nuke Roach” (scientific name, Nukus Rochus putinias), is colored a greenish blue and has sharp spines along what can be considered its back. It also has 34 pairs of legs, with some legs within legs that revolve like the eyes in the wheels of Ezekiel.
Nuke Roaches are not to be fooled with. They emit a purple poisonous gas from their spines that can travel at least 50 meters in the dark. They are less dangerous in the daytime.
According to Social Media and other government agencies, a new species has also been reported in Washington, D.C. It is known as the Hill Roach presidentia and is quite difficult to spot because it hides mainly in Congressional Records, which hardly anyone reads. The species has also been found in the Library of Congress, but only in books that have no historical significance.
We should also applaud our government’s interest in the rare spotted roach. We protect the spotted owl, the spotted salamander, the spotted leopard, and hundreds of other spotted species, so why not the spotted cockroach? You may, of course, believe that they need no protection, and should be eliminated, like the Wooly Mammoth and the Tyrannosaurus. This, of course, is an attitude that will doom the roach and its contribution to humankind.
To commemorate the month, rubber roaches will be given our free at Walmart, Target, Police Stations, and Cosco, beginning the first day of the month. You can have fun hiding them in your kids sandwiches and cookies. The rubber will contain vitamins and minerals to supplement children’s diets.
The government is not simply interested in roaches—it has your children at heart (or stomach).
Karl Franklin