A Cockro ach Story by Andrew Adams Can I borrow your attention for a moment or two? To lend you a piece of advice. I only wish to offer your ear a brief proverb so absurd You would have thought that I had just made it up. It all began one fateful night When I went to the kitchen for a snack. I flicked on the light, And was given one hell of a fright When I was faced with a room coated with clicking cockroaches Numbering twenty-two thousand or more. They were all milling about Paying me no mind. Some thumbed through magazines, Others played cards at the counter, While most helped themselves to the beer in my fridge. One of the bunch locked eyes with me, And I with it. It turned to the rest and with a chirp and a hiss It told the others to split. They all skittered off under my fridge. Leaving me there alone With my face frozen in a bug-eyed stare. I made my own retreat Thinking to myself for a solution. Should I lure them out with cockroach prostitution? Burn this place down and start again? Offer them a human sacrifice of my neighbor Ken? No. No, those methods would have been too easy. I decided upon tactics that were far less sleazy. I took the diplomatic route, And wrote them a note. It read: “I mean no harm to your cockroach kind
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