McGee: Conservations with insects best kept to yourself

It was early morning.

The sunrise was still two hours away.

I shuffled into the kitchen, flipped on the light and there was a cockroach skittering around in the sink.

I stared at it.

"Well good morning," I said, pondering the roach. "I've decided you're going to be the first roach to benefit from my new amnesty policy."

I reached for a paper towel.

"You see," I said to the roach, "Being here in the house used to mean an automatic squashing. But I have changed my mind. After all, spiders get a pass around here, why not you?"

I reached down with my paper towel and picked up the bug.

"So now you're going outside because you can't live here. But if you play your cards right you stand a chance of survival and you'll probably meet new friends," I said.

I opened the door and chucked the bug out toward the sidewalk.

Later that day at lunch I was chatting with The Lady of the House.

"I've decided not to squash cockroaches in the sink anymore," I said.

"There was a cockroach in MY sink?" she said.

"Probably came up through the pipes," I said.

"That's OK, it wasn't a cockroach, it was just a wood roach," she said.

"What's the difference anyway?"

"In the Deep South they have nasty little German cockroaches," said The Lady of the House. "These roaches here are slower, more like beetles."

"They are not," I said. "They skitter away."

"Real cockroaches practically fly," she said.

"Anyway, I've adopted a new policy toward roaches, I take them outside now."

"They'll just crawl back in," she said.

"I told him he wasn't allowed back in the house," I said.

"You talked to the roach?"

"Yeah."

"I won't tell anyone if you don't," said The Lady of the House.

Grant McGee is a long-time broadcaster and former truck driver who rides bicycles and likes to talk about his many adventures on the road of life.

Contact him at: [email protected]