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Cat Forum / Cat Anecdotes / July 2004Well, at least they're cheap to feed...
Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. A horrified neighbor saw the insects swarming across the floor of the man's house. The pensioner told police he had begun breeding the cockroaches as a hobby after his wife died. It took health officials two hours to kill the insects and disinfect the man's home.  SignatureThe One-and-only Holy MosesT >Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a >lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. >A horrified neighbor saw the insects swarming across the floor of the man's >house. The pensioner told police he had begun breeding the cockroaches as a >hobby after his wife died. Breeding cockroaches for fun. Now I've heard it all. And I thought DH's fascination with honeybees was weird. Sherry >> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a >> lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Sherry I'm sure it was a real challenging hobby ;) >> Breeding cockroaches for fun. Now I've heard it all. And I thought DH's >> fascination with honeybees was weird. >> >> Sherry > >I'm sure it was a real challenging hobby ;) Well, yeah, so is beekeeping. DH fancies himself the bee whisperer I think and talks to them. I've seen him grab handfuls, of thousands of bees and just scoop them into a new hive like they were ladybugs or something. Yeah, he gets stung. Yesterday he was moving some that were new, and more aggressive than the old ones. . Here's what I could overhear: "Come on, little bees, into your new home OW!!....Go on now, in your nice brand new hive OW!! OW!! BASTARDS!!..and so on. I just shook my head and came back in. I so do not get it. Sherry In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", Jul 2004: > Yesterday he was moving some that were new, and more aggressive > than the old ones. . Here's what I could overhear: "Come on, > little bees, into your new home OW!!....Go on now, in your nice > brand new hive OW!! OW!! BASTARDS!!..and so on. LOL Just like talking to cats. hehehe Sherry you got me in stitches here. lmao SignatureCheryl Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... My father loves Koi fish. About ten years ago we had our first pond in our backyard. Now having koi fish is cool and it's nice to see the pretty patterns but check this. Apparently fish can recognize sounds and can be "trained." So my dad would take a handful of koi food, stick his hand in the water and say, "Here fishy fishy fishy..." And after a while, the fish would come up and eat the food from his fingers. Dad would talk at dinner about how beautiful the fish were. There was this one fish, named Seran (Like Serandipity) who had these pretty blue eyes. Well, it's really weird when your dad starts talking about, "How pretty Saren's eyes are, and how they look at you with love at she comes up to take the food from your hand." Riiiiiiiiiiiight, Dad. Now we have three ponds, all connected, and complete with a waterfall and a expensive filtration system, and EVERY fish has a name. I think right now he has about twenty with names like Shinobi, Flash, Dash, Crash, Myopia, Conan, Lenny, Casper, and the list goes on. Now try sleeping and hearing this voice out in the backyard at 11 pm at night going, "Heeeeeere fishy fishy fishies.......here fishies..." *sheesh* Or hearing the same thing at 7 am. Meanwhile, my mom's Jack Russell/American Eskimo mix is barking at the fish trying to "herd" them. And it doesn't stop there. One day one of them got a sore on its side. So Dad hits the books and calls the guy who gave him the fish and soon we are administering first aid to a fish. First you stick the fish in a tub of water and put a few drops of this anesthetic. When the fish starts floating belly up, we quickly transfer him to a wet towel on a table, and start swabbing the wound with Hydrogen peroxide, iodine, and periodically pouring water over the gills. Then a quick shot of antibiotics and then transfer the fish into a tub of clean, fresh water. Then you give what my father calls the "kiss of life" You hold the fish and move him back and forth, back and forth, so water runs over the gills. Eventually the fish wakes up and starts swimming and you transfer him back into the pond. It's quite a sight to see, when you see your father holding a fish in the water moving him back and forth while saying, "In with the good air, out with the bad........wake up fishy......." And to top it off, if one of the fish die, sometimes it would make its way into the kitchen freezer wrapped in plastic. I came home from college one day and opened the freezer to see a fish that I had previously seen in the pond staring back at me. My dad said he hadn't had time to perform an autopsy yet, so he needed a "morgue". Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.......... That's when I just patted him on the head and walked away. The pond does look beautiful though...... I'm going home to visit them this weekend, and I know I'll have to make my tribute to this fishies and say hello. :) Kristi LOL! I like your Dad! I can see how some of those things could be a little disconcerting, though. ;-) Joy > Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] > > Kristi > Dad would talk at dinner about how beautiful the fish were. There was > this one fish, named Seran (Like Serandipity) who had these pretty > blue eyes. Well, it's really weird when your dad starts talking > about, "How pretty Saren's eyes are, and how they look at you with > love at she comes up to take the food from your hand." > Riiiiiiiiiiiight, Dad. He doesn't sound very different from how I sound talking about my cats! :) Joyce >Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] > >Kristi Be thankful he has a hobby and is not out chasing "wild women". > >Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > > > >My father loves Koi fish. About ten years ago we had our first pond > >in our backyard. Now having koi fish is cool and it's nice to see the > >pretty patterns but check this. <snip for brevity only> > >That's when I just patted him on the head and walked away. > > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Be thankful he has a hobby and is not out chasing "wild women". It must be a Dad thing. My dad's 1st shed is completley dedicated to model railways [1]. The second is dedicated to experiemental electricity and electronics (he's built himself a Logie Baird television set - its all mechanical, nothing like modern TVs). Dad can go on and on and *on* about both subjects ad nauseum. But its a much better hobby than drinking himself stupid or needing an expensive red sports car to prove he can still pull babes. Yowie [1] Allegedly built just for his grandson. Who can't even crawl yet.... > > >Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > > > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > Yowie > [1] Allegedly built just for his grandson. Who can't even crawl yet.... And I thought my Dad was unique. He had only one hobby at a time, but when he had one, he did it all the way. At one point he was into Bonsai trees. Besides belonging to a Bonsai Society, at the peak of his interest he had 700 of the little trees. When he lost interest in that, he sold or gave away the trees. He gave my mother a camera for Christmas one year, and then persisted in telling her what pictures to take and how to take them. In self defense, she gave him a camera so he could take his own pictures. Which he did. By the hundred. As that interest was winding down, he became interested in repairing and restoring antique clocks. While he was still into photography, he took some very nice still lifes of gears and other parts from the clocks. When he died, he had gotten rid of several of the clocks, giving one each to me and my two siblings and selling others. He and my Mom still had 15 clocks when he died. Come to think of it, my late husband didn't have that sort of hobbies, but he was heavily involved in singing Barbershop harmony. After he died, I gave away an entire file cabinet of four-part music, and I still have a couple of notebooks of the music left, along with about 50 Barbershop records and a few tapes. I guess it is a Dad thing. Joy >It must be a Dad thing. My dad's 1st shed is completley dedicated to model >railways [1]. The second is dedicated to experiemental electricity and [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >stupid or needing an expensive red sports car to prove he can still pull >babes. It is definitely a dad thing. I think railroads are a cool hobby for a man. (and *what* a cool grandpa he will be) > >It must be a Dad thing. My dad's 1st shed is completley dedicated to model > >railways [1]. The second is dedicated to experiemental electricity and [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > It is definitely a dad thing. I think railroads are a cool hobby for a man. > (and *what* a cool grandpa he will be) My dad's got really boring hobbies. He writes these mathematical programs on the computer that make pictures out of fractals. He writes me long emails explaining all these formulas, none of which I understand. But it keeps him busy! (I think he retired *way* too early at 57). Now he's going to build this gizmo which will levitate with the force of electrons or something. He got it off some French website. His other hobby is riding his bike to the lake and swimming and then riding home, a round trip of 2 hours. He's 63 and in great shape :-) He just quit golfing because he decided he has no talent for it. He's very stubborn. He used to haul these rocks weighing 50-80 lbs up these stairs by the beach so that he could line them up on either side of the driveway. That hobby didn't end until he got the driveway lined and various other artistically placed rock piles around the house. -- Britta Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered in fur! Check out pictures of Vino at: http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album But its a much better hobby than drinking himself > stupid or needing an expensive red sports car to prove he can still pull > babes. Sports cars can backfire ;) My DH just treated himself to what he thinks is a very pretty silver grey sports car. After three weeks, he's complaining that the only people who look at it or want to talk to him about it are small boys and geeky men. Still, he's right about one thing, it's impossible to get a cat trap, or more than one basket in it, so I won't be borrowing it, and it won't end up smelling of cat pee. Jeanette In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", Jul 2004: > I'm going home to visit them this weekend, and I know I'll have to > make my tribute to this fishies and say hello. :) Say hello from me! That's a very sweet/funny story. LOL I can just imagine my dad talking to fish. hehehe SignatureCheryl > Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > > My father loves Koi fish. About ten years ago we had our first pond > in our backyard. Now having koi fish is cool and it's nice to see the > pretty patterns but check this. And my now spouse of 35 years thought I was crazy when I said my gold fish in my little apartment kitchen knew me and ate out of my fingers. When I'd go in the kitchen the fish would come to the top of the bowl and "beg". Charlie thought I was nuts till he saw it with his own eyes. Jo > > Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > go in the kitchen the fish would come to the top of the bowl and "beg". > Charlie thought I was nuts till he saw it with his own eyes. My Boris (RB) used to do that. He(?) was a Black Moor goldfish, and was always come up to the front of hte tank and "blubb" hello when he saw me. If I stuck my fingers in, he'd come up and say hello by nibbling at them, and we could play chase around the tank. He even used to sit in my hand if I cupped it. Unfortunately, I didn't know the microorganisms on our hands can easily kill fish if they get into too close contact (particularly black moores because of their more delicate scales) and he died of some horrid fish disease that *I* gave him. I still feel guilty aboout killing him(?) with love. I've had other fish before and after, but none as special as Boris. He really did have a personality and playful nature. Most fish just seem to be animated tank decorations, but Boris had *soul*. Yowie >> Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >go in the kitchen the fish would come to the top of the bowl and "beg". >Charlie thought I was nuts till he saw it with his own eyes. My uncle used to raise catfish, more as a hobby than any commercial business. He had a shed down by the pond where he stored food. When you opened the metal shed and banged an empty coffee can on the shed they practically crawled out of the water expecting to be fed. Unfortunately, this is the uncle I wrote about a while back who had an armadillo who insisted in digging into the side of the pond's dam. After a couple years in a row where the pond had to be drained so the dam could be repaired, Uncle Jim stopped stocking the pond. SignatureSteve Touchstone, faithful servant of Sammy, Little Bit and Rocky stouchst@JUNKsirinet.net [remove Junk for email] Home Page: http://www.sirinet.net/~stouchst/index.html Cat Pix: http://www.sirinet.net/~stouchst/animals.html >My uncle used to raise catfish, more as a hobby than any commercial >business. He had a shed down by the pond where he stored food. When [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >After a couple years in a row where the pond had to be drained so the >dam could be repaired, Uncle Jim stopped stocking the pond. My DH stocked the pond about 10 years ago with little catfish. Now they're big. They *do* practically crawl out of the water when they hear us yell "Here, fishie fishie". I took a four-year-old nephew out there with a fishing pole and the stupid fish were so busy clamoring over each other trying to get fed, they completely ignored the bait. I guess they're just big smelly pets now. Like we need something else to feed. Sherry > Oh yeah? Here's one for ya.... > [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > I'm going home to visit them this weekend, and I know I'll have to > make my tribute to this fishies and say hello. :) Too funny :-) My dad recently started keeping fish. He's keeping them in the hot tub. My mom and him never used it and the lid broke so they figured they'd put fish in. They are too cheap to buy any fish food, so they catch bugs for the fish and chuck in their bread crumbs, etc. The fish are growing, so that's a good sign. I have yet to get them to tell me what kind of fish they are, although I suspect they may be trout or something that they are planning to fatten up and eat! That would be so like my parents... -- Britta Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered in fur! Check out pictures of Vino at: http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album sriddles@aol.comkitty (Sherry ) had some very interesting things to say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: >>Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a >>lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >Breeding cockroaches for fun. Now I've heard it all. And I thought DH's >fascination with honeybees was weird. Makes the tarantula my DH had when I met him seem like a downright normal pet. :-) Signature"Don't mess with major appliances unless you know what you are doing (or unless your life insurance policy is up-to-date)." - John, RCFL > sriddles@aol.comkitty (Sherry ) had some very interesting things to > say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Makes the tarantula my DH had when I met him seem like a downright > normal pet. :-) Eeek! I could deal with the roaches (stomp stomp stomp) more than I coudl deal with a tarantula. *shudder*. I thinkyou are very brave marrying a man who had a spider as a pet, don't know if I could even if he looked like Viggo Mortenson! Yowie "Yowie" <yowie9644.DIESPAMDIE@yahoo.com.au> had some very interesting things to say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: >> Makes the tarantula my DH had when I met him seem like a downright >> normal pet. :-) >Eeek! I could deal with the roaches (stomp stomp stomp) more than I coudl >deal with a tarantula. *shudder*. >I thinkyou are very brave marrying a man who had a spider as a pet, don't >know if I could even if he looked like Viggo Mortenson! The spider was actually pretty cute. DH's buddy the snake collector would have been a problem for me, though. :-) Signature"Don't mess with major appliances unless you know what you are doing (or unless your life insurance policy is up-to-date)." - John, RCFL > Eeek! I could deal with the roaches (stomp stomp stomp) more than > I coudl deal with a tarantula. *shudder*. Wow - this, from someone who lives in a country that has the greatest number of the most poisonous spiders in the world! If you feel that way about spiders, how can you stand it?? Whenever I see anything on tv about a tarantula, I try to overcome my irrational revulsion, and try to focus on the fact that it's actually not a very dangerous animal. They do sting (or bite, whatever), and there is venom, but it won't kill a person (unless they're allergic, I guess). It's not like being bitten by a funnel web spider or something. Nonetheless, I still feel that <<shudder>> when I see even a video of a tarantula walking, waving those hairy legs around (and trying to think of them as "furry" doesn't really help), and I'm not sure I've made much progress in my attempt to be more rational about it. <sigh> Joyce > > Eeek! I could deal with the roaches (stomp stomp stomp) more than > > I coudl deal with a tarantula. *shudder*. > > Wow - this, from someone who lives in a country that has the greatest > number of the most poisonous spiders in the world! If you feel that way > about spiders, how can you stand it?? I encourage Daddy Long Legs "spiders" (I know their not spiders, but they are close relatives) because they eat other spiders. Red-backs (similar to black widow spiders) are actually not so deadly after all, and are pretty timid spiders. They're actually quite pretty. Funnel webs don't tend to go into houses, preferring outside. We tend to get black house spiders (nasty, but not fatal. But agressive), white tails (allegedly cause necrosis around hte bite, but there is now some debate about this. Also agressive) and our own special "tarantula" the hunstman spider which can have a leg spread of a dinner plate, and can cause a painful bite (not overly agressive, but definatley *not* timid) If its in the house, and not a daddy long legs, it is dead. If I can't splat it with a handy shoe (or anything else) I'll drown it in insecticide and *then* splat it with a shoe. And I know not to go poking around in woodpiles or any other pile of stuff that hasn't been disturbed a while without gloves, a handy shoe, and a great deal of caution. I still can't imagine having a *spider* (of any sort!) as a pet. *shudder*. Yowie > Whenever I see anything on tv about a tarantula, I try to overcome my > irrational revulsion, and try to focus on the fact that it's actually [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Joyce > If its in the house, and not a daddy long legs, it is dead. If I can't splat > it with a handy shoe (or anything else) I'll drown it in insecticide and > *then* splat it with a shoe. Boy, does this ring a bell! When my daughter was a baby, I once found a black widow spider by the house. It also had an egg sac. I drowned it in insecticide, then beat both the spider and the egg sac into mush with a stick, shuddering all the time. Ordinary small spiders don't bother me, although I'd prefer they stay out of the house, but the big ones give me the shudders. On my first trip to Australia, someone took me walking near the edge of the water near Sydney. We ended up at a ferry stop, but I don't remember which one. Along the way, I saw dozens, maybe hundreds, of huge (to me) spiders in webs in the trees. The bodies were about 2 inches across. I was extremely glad that they were very high, and even gladder when we got past those trees. Joy When I was a toddler, my grandma was giving me a bath when this daddy long legs came down from the ceiling and landed with a PLUNK! on the bathtub faucet. I don't think I touched the ground as I ran screaming out of there. Also spiders crawling on the ceiling in the middle of the night used to really fresk me out as a kid. It was only when I saw one crawl all the way across the ceiling without bothering me was when I realized that it wasn't going to drop on me during the night. I had a college job bringing exotics to kids birthday parties (snakes, lizards, cockroaches) and I had to handle a tarantula. It took some doing on my part, but I managed it. It was a tarantula that was already used to being handled so it was okay. But I still would hold my breath when I had to reach into the plastic container to try and pick it up. Now I respect spiders, as long as they don't sneak up on me. Sneaking up meaning thy suddenly show up and scare the ^%&^$*^ out of me. They sneak up on me, they are automatically DEAD. Otherwise, I try to either take them outside or leave them alone. Anything poisonous I don't mind as long as there's a pane of glass between us. :) Once I had a nightmare about spiders and I woke up sweating. I calmed myself down and lay back down thinking "It was only a dream, it wasn't real" That's when I felt a tickling on my arm. I yelled and sat up ready to pummel whatever multilegged creature that was crawling on me.......... And Mischief cocks her head at me as if to say, "What's YOUR problem? Well, since you're awake, you might as well pet me." Damn whiskers........ Kristi > When I was a toddler, my grandma was giving me a bath when this daddy > long legs came down from the ceiling and landed with a PLUNK! on the [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > Kristi LOL! Joy In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", 20 Jul 2004: > Also spiders crawling on the ceiling in the middle of the night > used to really fresk me out as a kid. It was only when I saw > one crawl all the way across the ceiling without bothering me > was when I realized that it wasn't going to drop on me during > the night. Also a fellow spider-scaredy-cat. I'm going to have to upset you here, well, just because I can. lol (just kidding). But seriously, one time I heard some sort of statistic that said the average human will eat 8 spiders in their life. In their sleep. SignatureCheryl > Also a fellow spider-scaredy-cat. I'm going to have to upset you > here, well, just because I can. lol (just kidding). But seriously, > one time I heard some sort of statistic that said the average human > will eat 8 spiders in their life. In their sleep. Ugh, I soooooooooooooo didn't need to read that. :) Kristi >> sriddles@aol.comkitty (Sherry ) had some very interesting things to >> say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Yowie My first grade teacher when I lived in... let me think, I went to two different schools that year on opposite ends of the USA... oh yes, Vista, California - had a pet tarantula. When it died she had it encased in lucite or something like that and turned it into a paper weight. I thought that was pretty disgusting. Jill > >> sriddles@aol.comkitty (Sherry ) had some very interesting things to > >> say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > or something like that and turned it into a paper weight. I thought that > was pretty disgusting. Heh, she sounds like she has my dad's sense of humour. He was always saying he wanted to encase stuff in lucite for paperweights. When I was a kid, we were having dinner outside one evening and were being bothered by wasps. So my dad carefully chopped the heads off 3 wasps with his dinner knife. Later on, he made a little wooden plaque and glued on the wasp heads. I still have it, it says "1982". -- Britta Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered in fur! Check out pictures of Vino at: http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album >Heh, she sounds like she has my dad's sense of humour. He was always saying >he wanted to encase stuff in lucite for paperweights. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >-- >Britta ROFL! Your dad sounds like such a character. YUK YUK YUK!!!!!!!!! and I panic if I see one, I HATE them Jean.P. > sriddles@aol.comkitty (Sherry ) had some very interesting things to > say about Re: Well, at least they're cheap to feed...: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > "Don't mess with major appliances unless you know what you are doing > (or unless your life insurance policy is up-to-date)." - John, RCFL > Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a > lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. > A horrified neighbor saw the insects swarming across the floor of the man's > house. The pensioner told police he had begun breeding the cockroaches as a > hobby after his wife died. It took health officials two hours to kill the > insects and disinfect the man's home. I guess it takes all kinds. Only two hours to kill them? I would've bet that couldn't be done in that time withouth torching the whole building. Larry Osborne >> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a >> lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >that couldn't be done in that time withouth torching the whole building. >Larry Osborne Maybe they used flame throwers. >>> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted >>> after a lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> > Maybe they used flame throwers. Or Napalm leftover from the 'Nam stockpile. Jill > >> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a > >> lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > > Maybe they used flame throwers. Sounds like a good idea. Larry Osborne > Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a > lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. > A horrified neighbor saw the insects swarming across the floor of the man's > house. The pensioner told police he had begun breeding the cockroaches as a > hobby after his wife died. It took health officials two hours to kill the > insects and disinfect the man's home. I thought the Chinese regarded cockroaches as good luck - sort of "kitchen gods" (especially Chinese of the older generations). I recall a chapter in "Flower Drum Song" (the book, which was a series of short stories about Chinese life in America, without the coherent plot of the musical). One person's cook was thoroughly distressed at the state of the American kitchen over which he presided, and searched dilligently until he located a fellow cook who could provide him with a few roaches to make the kitchen more "habitable"! >> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after >> a lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I thought the Chinese regarded cockroaches as good luck - sort of > "kitchen gods" (especially Chinese of the older generations). No, that's crickets. SignatureThe One-and-only Holy MosesT >>> Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted >>> after a lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >No, that's crickets. Crickets I can see, as long as there aren't too many of them (a few are OK, but 200,000 crickets would be almost as bad as 200,000 cockroaches). I doubt that keeping cockroaches as pets is a mainstream practice anywhere; they smell too bad and they make too much of a mess of foodstuffs, not to mention carrying diseases. This guy's neighbors must have been battling cockroaches in their own homes for some time, and wondering where they were all coming from. I seriously doubt that the cockroaches all stayed in the old man's house and never went outside. SignatureJohn F. Eldredge -- john@jfeldredge.com PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria >Crickets I can see, as long as there aren't too many of them (a few >are OK, but 200,000 crickets would be almost as bad as 200,000 >cockroaches). Ha! 200,000 of *anything* isn't nearly as cute as 1 or 2. Like the chipmunks at Yellowstone. I gave one a crumb of bread, it was all cute and stuff, then all of sudden it seemed like fifty million of them ran up. Then they just looked like something out of "Willard" and totally creeped me out. Whew. Sherry In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", Jul 2004: > Ha! 200,000 of *anything* isn't nearly as cute as 1 or 2. Like > the chipmunks at Yellowstone. I gave one a crumb of bread, it > was all cute and stuff, then all of sudden it seemed like fifty > million of them ran up. Then they just looked like something out > of "Willard" and totally creeped me out. Whew. Sherry I hear ya. I like squirrels but last winter I put out a bird feeder because it was really snowy. I had so many squirrels in my yard that it was creepy. They were perching in the joists of the deck and fighting each other. The cats LOVED it though. They'd site inside the door for hours. SignatureCheryl >>>Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after >>>a lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > No, that's crickets. They keep crickets as pets, but if you read the rest of my post, you'd know I was talking of roaches. > Peking, Red China (Peking Morning Post) -- Police were alerted after a > lonely widower was found to be keeping 200,000 cockroaches as pets. > A horrified neighbor saw the insects swarming across the floor of the man's > house. The pensioner told police he had begun breeding the cockroaches as a > hobby after his wife died. It took health officials two hours to kill the > insects and disinfect the man's home. OK, it's gross, and a health hazard, and I don't think officials could have (or should have) done anything else, but if this guy thought of them as his pets, it must have been pretty upsetting for him to see them all killed... poor guy. Joyce PS - I haven't heard mainland China referred to as "Red China" in decades! (Neither have I heard Beijing referred to as Peking in quite a long time...) >OK, it's gross, and a health hazard, and I don't think officials could >have (or should have) done anything else, but if this guy thought of them >as his pets, it must have been pretty upsetting for him to see them all >killed... poor guy. > >Joyce Whoa. You are one compassionate lady. I never thought about it that way. >>OK, it's gross, and a health hazard, and I don't think officials could >>have (or should have) done anything else, but if this guy thought of them >>as his pets, it must have been pretty upsetting for him to see them all >>killed... poor guy. >> >>Joyce > Whoa. You are one compassionate lady. I never thought about it that way. Well, don't get the wrong idea. I feel sorry for the *guy*, not for the bugs. If I saw 200,000 cockroaches in one place, I think I'd be in catatonic shock for the rest of my life. Joyce In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", > Well, don't get the wrong idea. I feel sorry for the *guy*, not > for the bugs. If I saw 200,000 cockroaches in one place, I think > I'd be in catatonic shock for the rest of my life. I stayed with friends with something that sounds like that. Years ago, down on my luck. Not a memory I want to keep. SignatureCheryl
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