Day 50: Giant Waterbug, and a Story of Childhood

As a kindergarten student in subtropical south Florida, I was used to seeing the wayward large cockroach (we're talking the 1.5 - 2 inchers) enter the classroom and cause its localized pandemonium in that section of the room until some brave little student stomped on it. Then like good little monkeys we would all run over to make sure it was dead. Threat neutralized.

One bright sunny kindergarten day after a heavy rain the previous night, the teacher was reading to us when suddenly the biggest cockroach anyone had ever seen began to make its way across the floor in a strange hobbling sort of fashion (not at all quick like the usual suspects). Everyone gasped, some screamed. It was almost the size of some of our shoes - easily 4 inches - larger than kindergarten brains could fathom. The grotesque hobbling made it worse. The teacher urged us to calm down but made no move. A brave boy came out and stomped on it dramatically, but the hobbling continued. Now everyone screamed, this monster was resistant to stomping! It continued hobbling for a while but eventually succumbed to repeated stompings. Our teacher was not pleased with our actions or the bug guts and gathered a million paper towels to pick it up.

Later on in life, I realized this childhood encounter with a freakishly large cockroach, which has always stuck out in my mind as a moment of absolute horror, was not a roach but a giant waterbug, a member of the order Hemiptera. Epiphany! I actually felt bad for it now, and all the weird things about it now made sense (the knowledge that it wasn't a giant cockroach made the situation less traumatizing somehow).

Thank god there was no such thing as 4 inch cockroaches...right?

(nobody google that!)

[February 19, 2020]

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