more on that %$#*! bug

I appreciate the various reports I received about the recent potential cockroach sighting . I should note, as some asked, that I have indeed seen cockroaches before. At Indiana, I saw cockroaches in all three of the different buildings where sociology was housed. However, they were La Bamba Cockroaches, that is, Cockroaches As Big As Your Head. I knew the usual variety was smaller, but these I haven't seen so often. I did see four while eating at a Chinese restaurant in Bloomington (Yen Ching, for Bloomington residents), and we left swiftly without eating because we were worried that at any moment scores of them might come pouring out of the wall.

Opinions varied. A reader from Raleigh, NC responded unequivocally: "A cockroach! Definitely a cockroach! I had cockroaches in each of the dorm rooms at the very expensive schools that I went to. Plus, remember I used to [deleted] that blonde guy who worked part-time as an exterminator. So I know from cockroaches, so to speak, and that's a cockroach."

A reader from ChicaGogh, IL provided the heartening news that nearly two decades of past living in Wisconsin were not marred by a single cockroach sighting. A premium subscriber in South Bend, IN, sent several pictures of cockroaches to serve as comparison stimuli. However, today's kewpie-doll-prize goes to a reader from Beauxbaton, France, who went to an extension website and found what looks to me like a pretty close match (that is, before squashing). I present to you, a "leaf footed beetle":


(click here for this bug's homepage)

This is either it, or I'm deluding myself in an exhibition of profound cockroach denial. Both are surely possible.