Death Of A Cockroach

I just had to have my bathroom fumigated. I felt dreadful about unleashing roachgeddon, but it had to be done. No more washing roach poop off my toothbrush in the morning, or checking under the toilet seat before I pee.

In a random moment of universal solidarity, I stumbled upon this poem by Robert William Service. It sums up the situation perfectly:

Death of a Cockroach 

I opened wide the bath-room door,

And all at once switched on the light,

When moving swift across the floor

I saw a streak of ebon bright:

Then quick, with slipper in my hand,

Before it could escape,--I slammed.

I missed it once, I missed it twice,

But got it ere it gained its lair.

I fear my words were far from nice,

Though d----s with me are rather rare:

Then lo! I thought that dying roach

Regarded me with some reproach. 

Said I: "Don't think I grudge you breath;

I hate to spill your greenish gore,

But why did you invite your death

By straying on my bath-room floor?"

"It is because," said he (or she),

"Adventure is my destiny. 

"By evolution I was planned,

And marvellously made as you;

And I am led to understand

The selfsame God conceived us two:

Sire, though the coup de grâce you give,

Even a roach has right to live." 

Said I: "Of course you have a right,--

But not to blot my bath-room floor.

Yet though with slipper I may smite,

Your doom I morally deplore . . .

From cellar gloom to stellar space

Let bards and beetles have their place.