Sunday, February 13, 2011

Name a Cockroach For Your Valentine

Remember when we found out that Romania was going to make witches pay income taxes? Well, here is another highlight to keep seniors up to date with important stuff.

For the tiny sum of ten dollars, the Bronx Zoo will let you name one of their Madagascar hissing cockroaches. They are described on the website as brown and iridescent.

Their website is http://www.bronxzoo.com/name-a-roach. Pick the name of your sweetheart, a friend, teacher or even your legislator. The money goes to help with the wildlife preservation efforts of the Bronx Zoo.

I checked. These buggers, bugs, are huge. They grow up to three inches and live for five years. The males have horns and both sexes hiss. They hiss when they are happy, they hiss when they are mad... and they even hiss while courting. In fact, whole colonies hiss in unison although my reading did not come up with a reason for that. Imagine a whole seething colony hissing at the same time.

The Bronx Zoo has about 58,000 of these creatures. They sell for about eight to twelve dollars each but you can name one for only ten dollars.

A couple of years ago, New York jewelers sold several live bugs for holiday gift giving, complete with genuine stones affixed to each bug's carapace. One model wore it as a brooch. The prices were in the thousands.

If you have a secret Valentine and want to do something really different, how about doing something for wildlife at the same time? The zoo will email the recipient your Valentine greeting and certification of your donation and best wishes.

I think it sounds screwy but why not? As their website points out, flowers wilt and chocolate will melt, but those roaches live five years.

I am not going to post "roaches rock". Even I have scruples....but I have to admit I was tempted to name one after the Gov.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Seniors Rock.

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