As pest control professionals we deal with roach problems almost every day. As we are working to eliminate these pests for our customers, roaches are busy predicting the next president of the United States.
The New Jersey Pest Management Association holds a “presidential cockroach derby” every four years to predict this country’s next president. The derby pairs two Madagascar hissing cockroaches against each other with each cockroach representing a corresponding presidential candidate, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. Each roach has a tiny cartoon caricature stuck to its back as they race down a three-foot-long track to the finish line. Commentators make political wisecracks like, “Look, the Obama roach is leaning to the left.”
The Winner…
The Mitt Romney roach handily beats the Barack Obama roach thus solidifying Mitt Romney as the 45th President of the United States. Well, not exactly, but the derby has predicted the presidential winner 84 percent of the time. In 2008 it was the Obama cockroach that won the race.
Although there is a history of animals making accurate psychic prophecies, such as Paul the Psychic Octopus of 2010 World Cup fame, there is no scientific proof that roaches can predict anything.
The one thing that we can predict is that our customers will continue to need our services to keep roaches out of their homes.
You haven’t really made it big in a place like Hollywood or New York City until you’ve been a guest on any of the late-night talk shows. Leno, Letterman and Conan, among others, are the milestones to many up-and-comers and been-there-done-thats that keep those names relevant to us, the wanting public.
This week a very special and well-deserved guest made his, or her, debut to late-night television. The Madagascar Hissing Cockroach made a guest appearance on Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea Lately” show. Chelsea herself was actually absent, so funnyman and Leno sidekick Ross Matthews filled in as host. Animal enthusiast Mireya Mayor couldn’t get it to actually hiss, but it did a great job of scaring the laughs out of Mr. Matthews.
This about mirrored our first encounter with our very own Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. We bought him, or her, online from an online pest farm based in Ohio. We only assume that they (we bought 2) were imported straight from Madagascar. At least we like to think so. And we got ours to really hiss though!
*Did You Know: The head portion of the Madagascar Cockroach is said to be what George Lucas used to patten the design of Darth Vader’s helmet.
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