Tag Archives: cockroach

Cockroach

Cockroach: (n) a beetlelike insect with long antennae and legs, feeding by scavenging

If you wish to impress someone, tell him or her that you’re planning on preparing and serving lobster for dinner.

If for some reason, you are in need of getting rid of an old friend, or just want to keep someone out of your hair, tell him or her you have to get home to set roach traps.

Cockroaches are not just bugs.

They aren’t merely creatures crawling on the Earth, sharing space with us during our sojourn.

There are many annoying things about them. Actually, they hit on ALL the frustration buttons available, sending human beings into a tizzy.

  1. They have been around longer than we have, and according to scientific projections, will be sweeping up after we leave.
  2. They have no standards whatsoever for the joints they frequent, so they carry disease and gunk with them everywhere they go.
  3. They are sneaky, but once they have proof that you’re incapable of destroying them, they’re very willing to crawl into your living room while you’re binge-watching your favorite show and peer at you, mocking you, with full confidence in their little tiny grubby hearts that you will not get up and squash them.
  4. They multiply very quickly and their children seem more obedient to their cause then our own.
  5. And of course, they’re a symbol and stigma of poverty, and perhaps the definition for having a filthy house.

This just pisses us off. Cockroaches don’t care.

They can be exterminated, but not terminated.

They can be discouraged, but not overtaken.

And they can be insulted, and roll right back over to crawl around with their nasty, hairy legs–through all of our things.

I don’t like cockroaches.

I don’t think cockroaches like me.

I’ve had cockroaches.

I fear that cockroaches have had me.

I don’t think we’ll ever work out a deal.

But I hope that someday, when they inherit the Earth, there will be some creature to come along that gives them the creeps.

 

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Clue

Clue: (n) a piece of evidence

“There is a way that seems right unto a man…”

So true.

Even people who are crazy do things that honor what they think is right. That’s why right is often so wrong. Right does not need to prove
that it has a universal quality–just be sensible to one person.

That’s why we have laws. We can’t have three-hundred-fifty-million interpretations of right in the United States and think that we’ll be able to function. Yet even though there are rules, regulations and guidelines, human beings still feel what they think–is right.

Then they spend their whole lives searching for clues to prove their conclusions.

The problem? It’s not difficult.

If you want to step out today and establish a case for white people being stupid, there’s enough data available on the subject to support your claim. It certainly won’t be impossible to gather clues.

If your goal is to assert that men are different from women, and women from men, you will absolutely be able to find adequate examples to undergird your proclamation. There will be clues.

So there has to be some other way to determine actual value and lasting quality other than running it through our own personal prejudices.

What might be the clue for that?

I think perhaps the greatest clue to help us understand life on Earth is that no creature gains supremacy–just opportunity.

Even though humans may be more intelligent than other creatures, these other members of the animal kingdom certainly have an edge on survival instinct. And since Earth runs on a delicate balance between survival and intelligence, then each one of us can take a clue from the cockroach.

The greatest clue in the Universe–we are welcome to participate, but not encouraged to control.

 

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Buzzards

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Buzzard: (n) a large hawklike bird of prey

Sometimes I find myself discontent with my status and very fussy about my being.

Even though the more religious souls around me would disagree, I believe the Creator was much better intentioned than adept at design.

You know what I’m saying? Every once in a while, each one of us gets in a mood to buy some watercolors and try to paint a picture. Even though the experience may be pleasant, the results of the painting adventure need to buried in the back yard.

Yet what often causes me to recover from my spiritual swoon is considering how fortunate that I am not another type of creature.

I would despise being a cockroach.

Being a rat living in the sewers of New York City seems uncomfortable.

And I wouldn’t want to be a buzzard. Job description: flying around the sky all day long looking for dead things. Sometimes really, really dead things–so I can eat.

Now, I know that hamburger is just the remaining flesh of a cow, but when you add some ketchup, pickles and onions, it can be quite good.

Buzzards have to land and pick the bones of the dead.

I don’t want to be a buzzard. And I especially don’t want to be an emotional buzzard–flying around looking for the disasters in the lives of others so I can chew the fat with the old birds about their demise.

I don’t like buzzards–but they are part of creation.

So may I say, “Carion, my wayward son.”

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Bug

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Bug: (n) a small insect

Here was the explanation:

“You can always tell a black widow spider by the hourglass on its thorax.”

Please forgive me. There are so many things in that description I don’t understand, while meanwhile the little Dictionary Bbooger is biting and killing me.

I don’t like bugs.

I’m going to go one step further, because apparently I’m in a cranky mood.

I don’t like people who like bugs.

On this given day, I don’t even like bug-eyed people. I don’t think I’m alone–we don’t say somebody “antelopes” us. We say they bug us.

Spiders, bugs, insects or whatever categories they fall into, are all obnoxious. And they seem to warn us with their level of ugliness.

For instance, the common house fly is rather common. I know it spends an awful lot of time down at the poop pile, but other than that–and the fact that it occasionally buzzes me when I’m eating potato salad–it seems pretty harmless.

But then you have hairy spiders, long-legged spiders, insects with multiple numbers of legs–all of them warning you through their peculiarities to stay clear. A cockroach–two words that I never want to see together.

Also, I do not think it is fun to watch somebody handle a tarantula.

So when it comes to bugs, I am feeling my skin crawl even as I write this article.

Matter of fact, for the next hour I will probably assume there’s something creeping up my leg.

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 

 

Adder

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adder: (n.) a small venomous Eurasian snake that has a dark zigzag pattern on its back and bears live young. Also called VIPER.

I just think it’s rather weird.

I am pretty sure that we are taught–or maybe a stalwart portion of our culture is instructed–that most people are deathly afraid of snakes. Even folks who will pick up a cockroach or fiddle around with a praying mantis will usually shirk at the possibility of handling an adder.

Don’t you think that’s curious? I suppose if there was a nine-month-old baby crawling along, the little tyke might go over and try to pull on the tail of the reptile, but I’m not quite positive THAT’S true. We seem to have some sort of innate dislike for snakes.

Does it have anything to do with some of the spiritual tales told in holy books? Is it just the way they look, as they slither from side to side?

I’m not sure.

But even when I see them in the zoo, which is often in a rather dark environment, I don’t really desire to stay too long, peering at them, especially if they’re moving behind the glass. Certainly there is a small handful of human souls who are in charge of taking care of these creatures, who have developed the ability to come across as functional, if not fearless.

But there is something mystifying. It seems that the more prehistoric a creature appears, the more frightening it is to us. I guess we’re more accustomed to those specimens which have evolved in our span of time.

It’s not that I’m saying that lions, tigers and bears are not equally as intimidating–it’s just that those animals don’t make our skin crawl as much.

I would love to join in a discussion on this with some people who are smarter than me, to see if there are any sociological, psychological or even spiritual aspects to this trepidation.

But I probably won’t do that.

I probably will just choose to keep my distance from the adder … even though I think being called a viper is really cool.