La Cucaracha

With any kind of luck, we’ll all grow old enough to become burdens to our children.

After spending a couple of decades sacrificing for them—from tying their shoelaces and feeding them, to seeing to their emotional needs and driving them to sports events and local ERs—it’s payback time. Turnabout is, after all, only fair.

To that end, we’ve decided to wed our household with that of our daughter’s and her husband and two children. This decision, spurred by numerous reasons, was not considered lightly, and there has been much planning of the logistics over the past several months. While this transition has not been stress-free, the anxious moments are outweighed by the eagerness to successfully blend our two families in such a way that we will all benefit.

The grandkids should benefit from the knowledge Geri and I have amassed, provided we get it to them before losing our retention abilities.

It’s also been an opportunity to assess our lists of needed items. For me, books, certain memorabilia, clothing, and my kitchen stuff stays; the rest can be piled on the ash heap for disposal or resale. Much, I assume, will be donated to thrift stores. It seems an accurate observation to note that we spend the first two-thirds of our lives collecting crap and the last third trying desperately to get rid of it.

While our house is happily populated by us and a small menagerie, Sean Liam, the grandson in question, has decided he’d like to become a cockroach rancher. This announcement was met with much laughter until we realized he was serious.

My first response was a simple “no.” When more explanation was requested, I answered “no way.” Thirteen-year-olds in general have yet to embrace the idea of limits and so a family meeting was suggested.

I hate meetings in the same way as I hate cockroaches. The former usually resulting in a horse designed by a committee that emerges as a double-hump camel; the latter because cockroaches serve no purpose in the natural world. Except in Third World countries where they may or may not be considered a culinary delicacy and a source of protein, the only thing they’re good for here is to keep Orkin in business.

In lieu of a family meeting, I merely made my case stronger by saying that if I had wanted to live with cockroaches I’d have remained in the slums of the Lower East Side of New York.

Back in those halcyon years, I’d arrive home and kick the rats off the stairs leading to my apartment. Then, I’d unlock the seven or eight door locks, which, I believe was a warning signal to the roaches. When I opened the door and flipped on the light switch, the roaches, who are either attracted to or repelled by light (who knows?) would fly in the general direction of my face.

In a way, I suppose, they were happy to see me.

One winter I went to visit my parents in Boca Raton, Florida. My mother told me about their persistent problems with palmetto bugs. I was curious to meet one of them when one showed its little face from behind a box of roach killer. It was, in fact, a cockroach that some realtor decided to rename for the sake of making the bugs more tolerable by retirees buying into the Florida condo market.

While the palmetto might have sounded like an exotic cocktail, it was euphemistic for a horrible little bug with, perhaps, a deeper tan.

I once knew a guy from Florida whose business was to exterminate any number of bugs, including the palmetto, aka the cockroach. He had hundreds of employees, an impressive fleet of service vans, four ranches in Montana and his own Lear jet. His business plan was based on repeat business because cockroaches refuse to die.

When I lived in New York, exterminators would spray an apartment across the hall and the roaches would take a busman’s holiday to my place. Then they’d go back to 3C, happily immune to whatever chemical had driven them to 3B. It was a vicious cycle. The rats, typically the size of cats, responded appropriately to fourth-down punts.

Stomping on the little brown bugs isn’t always successful. In fact, it rarely is. They have the ability to reduce their height by 85%. Then they play dead for a few seconds and scamper away.

So my friend in Florida became wealthy by not killing whatever he promised to kill. Roaches are funny that way.

Scientists have noted that cockroaches, along with Keith Richards, will be the only survivors of a nuclear winter. I’d like to know how they seem to know that. We’ve never had a nuclear winter, so their information is limited—at best, their suppositions mere speculation.

QAnon, the religiously right-wing conspiracy whack-jobs, deny scientific inquiry and knowledge, but believe that cockroaches—except for those elected to Congress—will not survive a nuclear winter.

I’m hoping that this one time the QAnon folks are right.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Fried Roach

Stolen from Rove Pest Control

First, put the cockroach in a plastic, sealable baggie and put it in the freezer for 5 minutes (to ensure the cockroach is dead).
Wash the cockroach and dry it on a sheet or paper towel.
Heat a frying pan with some olive oil.
Fry the cockroach until it is brown and crispy.
Remove the oil, turn off the heat, and add a small amount of sugar and soy sauce.
When the sugar melts and turns into caramel, take the cockroach out of the pan and onto a plate, ready to serve or discard without ceremony.