Cockroach

Sefton writes this morning at Ace of Spades,

In any case, the Democrats are now scrambling like a gaggle of filthy cockroaches when the lights come on in the kitchen to try and come up with their own narrative that deflects the damage of the FISA memo and smears Devin Nunes and the rest of the GOP.

Ha ha ha. Gaggle of cockroaches. Like they're geese. That's funny. Everyone knows the collective noun for cockroaches is "an intrusion."

What else does everyone know about cockroaches? Let's see what children ask.

* What is a baby cockroach called?

Nymph.

* What is the study of cockroaches called?

Blattology.

* What does it mean when you call somebody a cockroach?

A disgusting creature I want to f***n step on. 

Come now. It means they can survive the apocalypse.

* What do you call fear of cockroaches?

Katsaridaphobia.

qa.answers.com 

Oh man, I just now transported mentally really hard. Wow, is that ever trippy. I just now relived it. I'm small. I don't even know where this is. I'm not geographically aware. It will be either Raleigh, or Winston-Salem, or Cape Charles. We just moved in. The neighbors moved out and now there are bugs. My mother is freaking out, disturbed by this unexpected intrusion. But why? They're not doing anything. I see one. It gets away. It's big. It climbs up the wall in a corner. I cannot reach it. I push a kitchen chair to the counter and climb up on the counter and reach for the bug in the corner near the ceiling but I still cannot reach it. It flutters right past my face at an angle to the floor and scampers off. I was not expecting that! I'm shocked.

Cockroaches can fly!

Sort of. And now I am really fascinated.

I've got to get my hands on one of these bugs and I'm not going to stop until I do.

Eventually I catch one and it's the most amazing thing in the world. I love the way it's legs wiggle around upside down. I like the way its underside looks, how everything is connected and compact like an airplane. I want to see its wings. They're tucked under its shell. I love everything about this bug, the way its legs spread out in different directions, its antenna, its little mouth clamps, its shell, its hidden secret wings under there, its eyes. You might say that I'm studying it but that's ridiculous, I'm playing with it. I'm seeing it. Like it is seeing us. I'm touching it, like it touches us. This is a relationship that I'm having.

I want to draw it. My crayons are right here on the table but blank paper is not, but at hand is a plate so I draw the cockroach on the plate best as I can. For I shall be true to this bug.  I discover that crayon on dinner plate works very well. Now, this right here is what you call a seminal moment. This moment is precious. This mental trip brought me here to re-live this precious cockroach related moment. The excitement of bugs, the disruption, the resolution, the art.

They saved the strangest things, move to move to move. If you were you to go into their basement and explore as my nephews do, open up boxes, box after box, you'd see the strangest things that were saved. I did that and wondered why they saved things inapplicable to anyone's future. Plates that came from soap boxes and collected as sets. Things saved from when my father's family was young. I saw a passport with all of us pictured together as small children and James a baby, wooden blocks depicting our family, each kid an Asian cartoon suspended by hooks that rattled whenever the door opened. Oversized carved wooden spoons once used as decoration. Fish that are like flags for Boy's day that never get flown anymore, art projects of children, decorations never put up anymore, toys that never get played with anymore, nicknacks, gewgaws, tchotchkes, salt and pepper shaker sets, waxed fruit, tools, vacuum tubes, old radios, clothing that nobody wears, dishes, service-ware, dolls, a kimono, musical instruments, Boy Scout memorabilia, an unbelievably large collection of H.O. scale train pieces that never get set up. Books. My books. How they ended up with my blown out Spanish textbook is beyond me. I haven't a clue how my books ended up in their basement.  I chewed up all my books. I devoured them. Nobody was interested in those, why they saved them is beyond me.  Mum and Dad's basement was strange as Dad's parent's basement was strange. Like a museum of strange things retained for remembrance more so than utility. A full cabinet of souvenir plastic cups. I wouldn't doubt that one of my sibs still has this plate. They retained the most bizarre useless things.

When my siblings cleared out the basement they re-packed everything into plain white storage boxes and stacked them along the wall farthest from the steps. James made a video of his last tour of the house and sent a copy to all of us. He is a natural comedian. He likes to fake us out best as he can, in return of us constantly faking out him. He was just so adorable you had to mess with him. He opened the coat closet near the front door. He said to the camera that he is holding, "This is where my brothers and sisters used to tie me up and stuff me."

I was horrified. I instantly became enraged at my three other siblings. I shot red with anger, I could knock all their heads together with one fierce smash. I am going to give them the dressing down of their lives! wanted to see blood, then just as fast I realized he's putting us on. The little bastard! He got me.

Before that, he showed us the yard. It too had never been so perfectly groomed and cleared up. He videoed from the farthest corner. His little spaniel was sniffing around the opposite corner. He called his dog. His dog perks up to attention and gleefully bounces toward him, like a cartoon, a bouncing mop getting bigger and bigger, up a hill, and bigger and bigger until it finally reaches James and licks and jumps and hops all around him in joyous reunion. It is simply the cutest recall that I've ever seen. That dog is cute! By contrast, my Belgian dog's recalls were Nazi-like, militaristically precise, but this is pure raw joy.

I had never seen the basement so clean and organized. A wall of white boxes stacked to the ceiling. My parents were never that tidy. In the video James approaches the stack of white storage boxes like approaching the Berlin wall, and zooms in on a label of one box.

"Books too Nerdy for Bo to Read"

How strange. Must be my dad's technical books. I cannot imagine what is inside. All of my books are sensible. All common down-to-earth interests. He pulls out the box and removes its lid. It's empty.

James deadpans without laughing, "There aren't any books too nerdy for Bo to read."

Son of bitch! He got me again.

That's what my siblings think of me. They were all in on this joke. They actually labeled an empty box. And they're just so funny. They joke about me.