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A neurotic's view of roaches
By DENNIS MAGGARD
1 think you should know that I hate dormitories, and I'll
never go back inside one. On my list of priorities they rate one
notch below a spinal tap.
I was hanging around campus the other night with nothing
to do, so I decided to go and visit my old suitemates in Avery.
As I approached the dorm 1 heard the usual commotion, an
avant-garde combination of bluegrass, rock, jazz, disco and
classical music, the psychedelic result of 238 different stereos
playing simultaneously. But interspersed with this soothing
N blend of contemporary American music were the shrieks and
screams of an Indian war-dance, and I knew instantly 'what
caused them. Quick as a flash I ran up the stairs to the fifth
floor and into my old suite, and there he was, an old friend of
mine a gangster cockroach the size of a lawnmower.
He and his band of warriors-at least a dozen of them
were screaming and whooping and running in a circle around
my former suitemates "Tom and George, who were crouched
in fear in the middle of the room. The whole scene was
straight out of an old western, with my suitemates playing the
cowboys with the old Conestogas drawn into a protective
circle, and the roaches playing the Apaches. I whipped out
my trusty can of Raid, which I always keep on me for just this
sort of emergency, and the roaches scattered all except the
leader, who seemed to be having an identity crisis mix-up
with King Kong.
You've seen them before. They have these six pairs of
Arnold Schwarzenegger biceps, and these nasty radar-like
antennae sticking out all over, not unlike some people I've
met at mixers. And they're humongous; these suckers are so
big they're frequently mistaken for the Loch Ness monster,
except they don't swim so well. They hide in the walls lifting
weights and doing push-ups, then come out when they get
hungry and terrorize the tenants, like in an old Hitchcock
movie I once saw.
. So all the roaches have scattered except this big thyroid
case. He's just standing there, daring us to take him on.-And
you can't reason with them-I know; I tried. 4 tried non
directive counseling, which 1 learned from Psych 10; 1 tried
transactional analysis, psychoanalysis, free-association and
semantics. But this bastard is the entomological equivalent of
a construction worker. There was only one way to get
through him, as George symbolized by throwing his size-14
extra-heavy-duty Frankenstein hiking boot at him. The bug
picked it up and threw it back. So we're here trying to reason
with this monster, this gangster-big cockroach, this product
of a broken home, when George pulls his next stunt. He gets a
piece of unwaxed dental floss and tries to lasso the thing
"Whuttheheller you doingT I cried. "He'll grab that string
out of your hand and then tie us up with it! I've seen 'cm do it,
in a Bergman movie I once saw where
"He's my friend! His name is Rex." Rex the Wonder
Roach."
"Fine, what do you want to do, capture and rehabilitate
him?"
"Why not? He's got feelings just like you and me," George
insisted. It was then that I realized I was dealing with an idiot.
Make that two idiots, for next Tom spoke up:
"Yeah. Roaches are beautiful beings. They can develop
into really fine personalities, given love and understanding."
"We'll send him to the finest schools," George sang. "He'll
learn to play the violin; we'll read to him the philosophical
teachings of Voltaire, Kant and Mozart; he'll learn to speak
French and how to read a wine list." Here I am, standing in
the threatening presence of The Roach That Ate Cleveland;
this guy's trying to perform Will Rogers tricks with a pieceof
dental floss, while he and another cretin are seriously
considering putting a roach through college.
I couldn't take it anymore. 1 kicked the creature (the roach)
as hard as I could in the exoskeleton; it didn't even phase him.
He murmured something in broken English, something
about having friends on the East side of the wall, and I froze
-in fear, recalling a late-night creature-feature I once saw
.where a fellow insulted a giant moth, and the moth gathered
his friends together and they nabbed the guy in the shower
two months later.
1 snapped back to reality, and instantly grabbed a nearby
grocery sack and threw it over the beast's 4iead and jumped
on it. I closed the sack around him and could hear him
thrashing around on the inside, cursing as those uncouth
dorm roaches are inclined to do. George screamed, "Wait a
minute, you can't do that to my roach!" and John, the local
pothead across the hall, stuck his face out of his door, filling
the hall with smoke, and whispered, "Roach? Someone say
roach?"
It tried to kick it's way out of the bag, but before it could
tear out with those razor-sharp claws and mandibles I heaved
the bag out the .window, where it fell 300 feet to the ground
floor but not to its death, because, as you know, roaches
have nine lives or maybe it is dogs that have nine lives
anyway it didn't die, and we heard immediate cries of terror
" rising from the first floor. "Jesus Christ, look at the size of
this roach!!"
It was loose. And a feeling of dread overpowered me as I
realized that it would crawl slowly back up the stairway, then
hide out in the ceiling, waiting. And next time I come around
it'll get me. Just like in this after-midnight science fiction
movie I saw once where Bella Lugosi turned into a giant tick
and hid in the Pope's laundry until....
Dennis Maggard, formerly known as Harold Schmuck. is
a senior living in Carrboro. ,
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25 will be open this Saturday, June 16, from Vi:03 a.m.
3:00 p.m. for your convenience
Student Stores on campus has Syst
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Open 7:45 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
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Thursday. June 14. 1979 The Sumsaer Tar Heel 5