I do have a friend who, when he was a kid, got a cockroach stuck in his ear. That is not urban myth. They’re apparently unable to crawl backwards, so once they go in, they’re stuck. Again, I think I would just have to kill myself if that happened to me. I don’t think I could go on.

I don’t live in New York, but I live in an unfortunately warm (year round) climate, which means we never really get a reprieve. And, like you, I am generally a very peaceful, environmentally-minded person– until one of those buggers comes around.

I once had one crawl on me while I was sleeping. WHILE I WAS SLEEPING. Can you imagine waking up to that? I slept with my lights on for the next two months!

I think the solution may be some kind of double- or reverse-plunger device: The initial plunger is encased in a plastic cylinder (to catch all those wayward eggs), and then the second or reverse plunger would be deployed to expel roach parts into, say, a toilet.

Oh, and let’s impregnate the whole shebang in roach-toxins.

Please let me stop thinking about this.

Hadn’t heard of your roach stomper. Can I tell you something that will horrify you? When you stomp a female, egg-carrying roach, the egg sac will either burst open, scattering eggs into every crevice, or will stick to your shoe (or, in this case, stomping tool). On a shoe, it’ll spread the eggs far and wide. I don’t think you can tell the sex by looking at them. Stomping roaches = bad idea.

I want to invent a tool that will allow you to pick up the carcass without coming any closer than about three feet. Inventors, please contact me.

I told you about my roach stomper, didn’t I? (My fear of roaches is so out of control I can’t even step on them, fearing that they will somehow seep through my soul, er, sole of my shoe.) I bored a hole in a leftover piece of 2×4, and glued in a broom handle. Flat bottom, perfect for a quick dispatch—tho’ there was the issue of removing the carcass from the wood block.

It did not, unfortunately, work so well against the flying roaches of the Southwest. . . .