Didn't I tell you?

Not a day had passed since the official launch of my Campaign to Crush the Cockroach when I received the following email:

"Subject: I am deeply disappointed.

Body (after spell checking out the errors that naturally accompany any such impassioned appeal):

Mother Nature in her wisdom has created many cretaures great and small, among them the cockroach. Living in Cambodia, where mosquitos can kill you, you instead choose to focus your bile on the cockroach, which doesn't bite, sting or really do anything more than just exist. I thought you might admire that the cockroach is among the fastest of insects...it can run three miles an hour, and few insects can make noise...the hissing is probably a male looking for love, perhaps he loves YOU (I know I do, so I find it perfectly understandable). A Cockroach can live without its head for up to two weeks. It can survive being frozen. It can hold its breath for 40 minutes. It has been around for 200 million years. it is a SURVIVOR. Some people keep them as pets. I suggest you do the same. They are very clean animals, and are hard to kill. A six foot can of Raid may do you more harm than the poor arthropod. Love You Mom"


And didn't I tell you how I would respond? Ignore and deny, friends, ignore and deny. My next post will be a photograph of the do-it-yourself cockroach trap I've constructed, although taking in account the remarkable breath-holding prowess of our determined foe, I may consider replacing the central drowning chamber with some kind of guillotine-and-then-drown arrangement. I do seriously doubt that a cockroach can hold it's breath for 40 minutes if it no longer has a head, or, for that matter, live headless two weeks when submerged in a pool of stale beer -- don't you, Mom?