h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

King of the Roaches

Posted May 24, 1999

I have just come into contact with a higher form of life. And, being both xenophobic and neurotic, my first reaction is to try and murder it. No, it is not a spider or a beetle, an ant or (moving on to reptiles) a lizard.
Yes, it is that scourge of mankind, that king of evils, that doctor of doom, the COCKROACH.
This being no ordinary cockroach, he has approached almost 4 inches in length, and must definitely be a result of all that atomic testing in Rajasthan. He definitely has some prehistoric form of intelligence (approaching Vajpayee after surpassing Bal Thackeray and George Fernandes) and will, I'm sure, in not more than a few days, be approaching Jayalitha, Laloo Prasad Yadav territory.
He is gigantic, and besides having a mind of his own, proceeds to fly all the way from my bathroom and settle on my desk. This gargantuan mythical monster has emerged from the depths of my nightmares and proceeded to materialize in my bathroom. He is the only cockroach in my home (that I know of) and I have watched him evade my futile attempts to kill him with that HIT spray.
I watched him grow (yes he was a big baby) and over the short span of three weeks has metamorphed into this hulk. I take him to be a portent omen of things to come. I am scared to hit him with anything (no this is not your usual beat-up-with-a-magazine style of roach) and he proceeds to eat the poisoned aata placed strategically in a corner for him with apparent gusto. Every day only shreds are left, and although that has enough poison to kill an army of normal roaches, it only seems to make him bigger.
I am afraid to hit him; he may beat me up. I am wondering if he is a bumblebee in disguise. For all I know he may be making honey sitting in my drain while planning to sting me before donning that brown suit.
He is the stuff of bad dreams, of Anu Malik songs, of David Dhawan movies. He is the sumo wrestler of cockroaches. He is to roaches what Hiroshima is to conventional bombs.
I have noticed him watching me, with those two opposing wands of his that seem to move at will. I bet he is plotting his next move just like me.
But with the price of french beans hitting Rs. 50, who has money to deal with cockroaches?

 

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