Cockroaches

I'm not sure if I ever saw cockroaches before I lived in Puerto Rico, or at least I wasn't familiar with them. The first reference to a cockroach that I recall was in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, which we read in high school English class, which was discussed in greater depth in a college class I attended on Existential Literature. It is a tale of the absurd in which Gregor Samsa, the family breadwinner, wakes up one morning to find that he has become a giant cockroach, an atypical experience which readily presents some special challenges.

My first personal encounter with cockroaches, that I know of, was during my internship year in Bible school where I worked at a bookstore in suburban San Juan, Puerto Rico.  I don't remember them being a problem. These were big cockroaches--one to two inches long--and what I most remember is how the lizards would try to eat them. The lizards weren't much larger than the roaches, but if a three inch lizard grabbed a one inch cockroach by the head, he'd spend a full hour trying to get that monster into his gullet, even if it were twice the size of his head.

One evening suring that year in Puerto Rico I badly stubbed my toe on a rock while running barefoot. The toe turned black and hurt like crazy. I eventually fell asleep, but then had a horrible dream. In the dream I was looking at this swollen black and blue toe and noticed something peculiar. There was movement inside the toe beneath the callouses. Suddenly my toe burst open and a giant cockroach crawled out as if coming out of a cocoon. I woke in horror and was relieved that my toe was still just as it had been.

THE PEGBOARD INCIDENT
At the end of 1980 Susie I went to work at an orphanage in Mexico for a year. The apartment we were provided had no furniture other than a bed and a kitchen countertop. We smuggled in wood from across the border (sheets of plywood in Texas were $15 and in Mexico $75) and I built some cabinets to place the countertop on. 

Because of the moisture in the walls, and bare wires somewhere within, the walls carried 45 volts of electricity, not enough to kill you but plenty to give you a shock if you touched metal clothes hangers while barefoot, or the shower curtain rod with the water running.

We were young so to some extent it was an adventure. Resolving the rat problem was challenging initially, and scorpions in the house occasionally distracting, but the cockroaches... they were something else.

I had fastened a pegboard to the wall so we could hang pots and pans in the kitchen. At some point we realized that there were cockroaches gathering there behind the peg board. You seldom saw them but at night, when it was dark, you might see a few when you suddenly turned on a light.

What we learned about rats applied equally to cockroaches. I'd read that if you see a rat, there are dozens you don't see. If you see a rat in broad daylight on the open lawn, there are a hundred you don't see. The principle applied equally to cockroaches.

One day we decided to buy some insect spray to kill the cockroaches. We removed all the pots, pans and other kitchenware, then covered the countertop. I began spraying behind the pegboard and to our horror it seemed like a thousand cockroaches emerged, scattering in all directions on the wall. 

MINNEAPOLIS SLUM 
In 1982 we found a place to live in the Twin Cities back in Minnesota and started painting apartments. The apartments we painted were in all parts of the Cities including some of the worst neighborhoods. One of the apartment landlord owned several houses a few blocks East of the Metrodome. We'd been asked to go there and paint the walls to make it ready for new tenants. The place was infested with cockroaches and really not fit for habitation.

How bad was it? In order to paint the bathroom walls I would use a dry brush in my left hand to sweep the cockroaches off the wall while rolling the paint onto the wall with my right hand. Literally, the walls in that room were completely covered with cockroaches. My hair is crawling just thinking about this.

* * *
According to Wikipedia there are some 4600 species of cockroaches, 3000 or so in Washington D.C. There is so much darkness beneath the surfaces that the entire city is infested with cronyism and waste. I have always believed that people would benefit by living in a Third World country for a year or so while young. I also believe that reading a good book about pork barrel politics and government waste early in one's life, preferably a politically non-biased book, is a useful and educational experience.

One purpose of a free press is to shine a light into the dark corners, that we might have more transparency in government. Instead of sweeping all these cockroaches back under the rug, let's sweep them out the door. First, someone on the inside has to turn on the lights. 

What do you think?

EdNote: I made us the number 3,000.