They ain't Freakin Cockroaches

This critter is a Palmetto Bug. ELISSON was talking about "...a Carnival of the Cockroaches? You know, 'cause people like cockroaches...and there aren't enough Carnivals in the Bloggy-Sphere already. I may just start one to see what happens." Now I never tried training a cockroach to perform in a carnival but let me tell you what I have heard about these big Florida palmetto bugs!

Now keep in mind that I have never actually seen any of this I am about to tell you about. So if you want to call anybody a liar you will have to front my Uncle Billy Joe. But also keep in mind that Florida has this new gun law that allows that if one feel threatened then he can pull out the old .44 and blaze away. Billy Joe packs a pair of them and don't take kindly to people calling him a liar. He claims it is a threat to his integrity and thus he is allowed to defend himself. I reckon.

Billy Joe says the Palmetto bugs are not only trainable, he has saw them perform. He said back in the old days when he first got to Florida all the cheap hotels in Tampa were downtown on Franklin Street and that the hotels had these big bugs trained to carry your luggage. Only thing was they carried it out instead of in.

Now Billy Joe swears that he knew this guy that had trained a brace of them to harness and they pulled his kids around in a little red wagon. He said they were so good a local flea circus hired them to perform but killed them when they ate all the fleas and he had to shut the circus down. "Damn Shame," allowed Billy Joe, " if they would'a just fed the varmits a little better, well they could'a made a lot of money."

I was kind of skeptical at the pair of Palmetto bugs that this other friend of Billy Joe's claimed that he had trained as watch bugs. He had to get rid of them when the post office called him and threatened to turn him over to the law because of the bugs attacking the Postman. But the friend allowed the only reason they were after the mailman was because he was delivering a Christmas fruit cake and even the damn Palmetto Bugs hate the stuff. They were just trying to keep that postman from leaving it on the front porch.

Billy Joe also said when he was living over in the Green swamp the things just took over his house. He was tring to get rid of them and got a half dozen of them Gekko lizards to try to thin out the Palmetto bugs. He said withing thirty minutes the bugs had ate five of the lizards and the other one was doing a moon walk out the door.

Now my uncle does have an idea that might work-I don't know but it sounds good. Billy Joe says that the damn things will eat anything including the cellephane wrapper on a loaf of bread. He has the idea of soaking bread with nitro glycerin and conning the bastrads into eating the bread. Then he wants to catch as many as he can and send them to Iraq and Palestine. He says when the ragheads stomp on them it will blow their damn feet off and put the terrorists out of action. Billy Joe allows to fight the terrorists we are going to have to think outside the box! This is his contribution.

I've been fortunate this far and have not been invaded with palmetto bugs. It may be because I built them a soccer field and a basket ball court in the back yard just to keep them happy. You know, keep them busy and they don't turn to vandelism. But I did notice some turds in my work shop that were an indication they had been around. I handled the turds very carefully and took them over to Billy Joes house just in case they were from them nitro eating bugs of his that had come over to my house to play and cound not find the palmetto bug outhouse.

So after reading all of this, and you still want a cockroach carnival, I'll have Billy Joe round up some Palmetto bugs and ship to you. But I warn you, if you don't feed them pretty good they will eat up your other performers. And be careful about stomping on them.