Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Cockroach is to mother as hissing is to ______________.

It's that time of year again. I still hate the damned Madagascar hissing cockroaches, though I can at least touch them now. Of course, they had to prove me a liar this time around. The ones we got this year aren't as docile as the ones we got last year (the ones last year, you could throw rocks at them and they'd just sit there stupidly, staring at you. Kind of like 6th graders, actually....) but at least they hiss, which is cool and disconcerting at the same time. The curriculum tells us to tell the kids that they don't have any diseases and they don't bite. Supposed to make the kids feel more comfortable around them. Except.....Brady came up to me and showed me that his cockroach actually did bite him. Bastard drew blood too (that must have been one motherfucking pissed-off cockroach). So much for "they don't bite". If Brady comes down with some rare African sleeping sickness, I'm asking for my money back.

Anyways, we were discussing the hissing behavior in class today. "Why do you think the cockroach hisses? What was happening at that time?" I asked the kids.

Most of the kids could tell me that they were picking up the cockroach, or poking it with a pencil, or trying to shove food in its mandibles to try to get the thing to eat (They have no empathy, I tell you. They're bopping the poor bug on the head with a piece of banana and complaining that the thing won't eat. Maybe they'd eat if I threw a banana at their heads, but most of the world doesn't like being harassed with fruit), and that the cockroach probably hissed to scare them off. Then Devan raises his hand.

"So I think the cockroach is like my mom? Like, when I keep poking her, and she hisses at me to get me to stop?"

Mind you, if I poked my mom repeatedly and pissed her off, I'd probably wake up 5 feet away with a handprint on my cheek and my ears ringing so Devan's probably getting off easy. Might explain his lack of impulse control. But I suppose I should be grateful that he made a real-world connection.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, cockroach anecdotes are hilarious, but the inclusion of the motherfucker expression disturbs me. (I have resisted, so far, referring to our less intelligent students as "fucktards" and "fuckwits" as my colleagues do, but find the m/f expression even more disturbing)