Cockroaches and Robots

In Botswana we have lots of bugs and animals.  For the most part it’s not too big of a deal, but from time to time I meet newcomers who have serious issues with the bugs.  A few months back I met a German woman at a party who was excited to be moving back home the following week, “I just can’t handle the cockroaches,” she explained.

The cockroaches aren’t so bad, but they do occasionally get into your house.  That’s why we have DOOM!  The other night I woke up because I thought someone was trying to break into my house.  I heard a noise at the window.  I went down to the kitchen, switched on the lights and realized I had forgotten to close the windows before I went to bed.  It wasn’t a robber that was trying to get in; there were half a dozen cockroaches climbing on the outside of the screens.  One of them made it through a large whole in the screen.  I didn’t have DOOM! handy, so I grabbed a frying pan and smacked it.  You know how they say if the world comes to an end the only thing that will survive will be the cockroaches?  They are correct! I succeeded in decapitating the cockroach, but not killing it.  And it turns out, when you decapitate it, it continues to live.  The head and the body continued to move independently, quite quickly I might add, as if on the run from the frying pan.  I couldn’t believe it.

The cockroach incident reminded me of the movie Wall-E.  If you haven’t seen it my father and I consider it a Pixar classic.  It features a robot, left on earth after everyone moves away due to excessive pollution, and his sole remaining friend is a cockroach.  Here is Wall-E, the robot, along with his friend the cockroach:

Here’s some of our robots.  This is Africa.  So often times the robots aren’t working, either due to power outages, or because they were never hooked up the first place:

And here are some robots in the grocery store.  Get it?: