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Jon Orton's avatar

"Since cockroaches always scurry at the sight of humans, I seriously doubt an alcoholic one shared Tom’s drink". Not all of them scurry off - sometimes they scurry towards...

My first job was in a small office just behind a fast food restaurant. 'Pigeon roaches', as we knew them, lived in great numbers in the crevices. They were light grey and bigger than the standard dark brown with gold trim-coloured cockroach found in the tropics. Those themselves are three times the size of the small roaches I've seen in temperate climate in the northern hemisphere which might've taken a swim in Tom's drink.

Once, when my employer slammed a high level window closed, several of those pigeon roaches were dislodged from their perch and fell onto him, scuttling into his safari suit. I've never seen a man strip to his underwear so quickly whilst emitting shrill shrieks. One of my favourite memories.

Another was from ten years earlier when I had a friend who was partial to condensed milk. He'd open a tin and drink from it then put it in his bedroom cupboard for finishing off later. He once left it a few days and, when taking his first swig of the remainder, he felt sugary lumps where the condensed milk had congealed. He bit into the third lump to savour it and found it was the condensed milk-marinated body of a large cockroach that had gone for a midnight swim with its brothers (the earlier lumps).

Pete sold the remainder of the tin to his younger brother.

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Al DuClur's avatar

"Pity those who have nothing but shopping malls, strip malls and convenience store parking lots. You’ve been robbed of life."

True. They are soulless but, sad to say, an improvement over people staring non stop at their cell phones and never being in the moment and never noticing anything around them.

Recently I noticed, speaking of noticing, an old art deco looking door jam. Depressing to think about how at one time people valued aesthetics and took pride in the little details in addition to the grand designs.

Now architecture and design are purely functional. The outside of most buildings could be designed by a 6 year old. At least the 6 year old would add some fun colors and maybe a horse.

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