Would I Lie To You?

Sometimes you can get lucky. It’s said that virtually no home here is completely devoid of them. If there’s one, there could be 100. And, if there are 100, there could be thousands. Etcetera.
Thanks in part to an exo-skeleton, they may the only survivors after we blow ourselves to Heaven, Hell or Tahiti, if you are a sun-loving atheist.
Still, if you must live in Japan, there are solutions to the problem. Here are some that I tried:

A Dozen Ways To Handle A Cockroach
1. Stomp on it.
2. Do it again. It’s still running.
3. Scream like the sissy you are, hoping that it has eardrums, and that they might burst.
4. Stomp on it some more. Why won’t it die?
5. Buy some bug spray and try not to blind yourself.
6. Burn it with a can of bug spray and matches.
7. Try not to blind yourself (again).
8. Shoot it with an elastic band and paper clip.
9. Try not to blind—ah, you know.
10. Ask someone to kill it for you (no one was home!).
11. Let it eat your girlfriend’s cooking (is there trouble in paradise?).
12. Move out and concede defeat. Besides your rent will go up once the landlord/superintendent finds out you have multiple occupancy.

Number 11 did not happen. Even I could not be that cruel.
Somewhere Kafka is laughing,
Andrew Joseph
Musical title by The Eurythmics.