Humans can be so dumb

Humans can be so dumb.

E mails are not just for humans.

My human servant is so old he was a fan of the Archy and Mehitabel poems of Don Marquis, which is how I come to know cockroaches and cats can be friends. It also showed a cockroach can type in order to communicate with humans, when really driven to it.

I am Archie one of the Yorkshire families of terriers. I no longer have to chase rats out of coal mines, as my distant forefathers did, I have a more sedate life. As long as I keep the servants, humans, in line, things normally go according to plan. I want to tell you about a day that did not go to plan. I was woken very early by an unexpected noise, the scent of a stranger filled the room, I woke my head servants, who I allowed to sleep in the same room, it is more convenient for the times when I need something. Anyway, I digress, the scent filled the room, but the noise stopped and then I could hear a faint tapping sound, I barked at my servants to get them to open the door for me, funny really, I can speak perfectly good English and I understand every word they say; admittedly I often pretend not to hear or understand, but the only language they react to is old fashion barking. No idea why this is so, but I digress again. One of them opened the door and I rushed to investigate this strange scent and noise. There were no traces of fear in the scent, but a strangeness, something I have never encountered before. I went down the stairs in a rush, barking the “I’m coming” signals as I did so, I skidded on the floor at foot of the stairs, I keep trying to tell the servants that this should not need polishing, but they never seem to learn, I rushed into the sitting room and there it was. The strangeness, the laptop my head servant uses to get the cash for my steaks etc. had been left open and the window was also slightly open, just enough for a cockroach to squeeze through, and one had. The cockroach was head butting the keypad to type up a message. My arrival caused the creature to pause from its work, it glanced down from the desktop then turned back to the keypad. I called to my servants to come and view this strangeness, but they were so dopy with sleep they just shouted for me to be quiet. The cheek of these servants shouting orders at me! The sound of their voices made the cockroach back off the keypad and crawl under the laptop so that by the time the servants arrived it was nowhere to be seen, but there was a message on the screen. The time is coming, that was all it said.

The servants got excited and kept searching for some human that had typed this message, being human, they have funny ideas, such as only humans can read and write, or even speak. They actually have very little intelligence when it comes to the ability of non-humans. They have this strange notion that because the rest of us choose not to communicate in their language, we cannot do so, such arrogance, but that is the problem with the lower order of species. I have even heard them say horses and dogs have to be trained to obey humans. Totally ridiculous, it is humans that have to be trained to serve us properly. I digress again, back to the cockroach story. I chose not to tell them about the roaches typing and just waited until they calmed down and went back to their bed, I stayed still and quiet, something else humans have a problem doing, after about half an hour the cockroach reappeared and went back to the keypad, he, and I am sure it was a he, but difficult to tell with roaches, sorted out an e mail address and sent his message then deleted all that he had done and climbed down to the floor scuttled across to the window and escaped from the house. I was so intrigued by this that I climbed up to the windowsill and watched his path. He went down the wall and across to the wooden shed then disappeared under it. I went back to my bed now that the servants had warmed it up again.

The next morning, I explored the wooden shed, even tried to dig under it but too much stone and concrete. The servants convinced themselves that the message on the laptop had been a dream. How easy it is to fool humans they dismiss anything they do not accept and understand. Anyway, I could not see who this message was sent to, but I could keep watch on the shed. I wasted most of the day watching, sometimes walking round the shed but mostly laying in the sun and watching the place the roach had squeezed into. Just as it was getting dark, I saw a whole army of roaches approaching down the garden path, there were thousands of them and this was not a good thing, live and let live has its place but thousands of roaches would damage the nice life I had got now the humans were trained to supply all my needs. I called to them then barked and this attracted their attention, they saw the mass of roaches and panicked, They turned on the water hose and tried to wash the creatures away, one of them used a telephone to get help and two other humans arrived in a van and sprayed chemicals everywhere, I kept well out of the way and spent the next two days avoiding that area of the garden.

Life returned to normal the humans soon forgot about it and never did connect their dream about a message on laptop with the invading army. I did not bother to tell them the truth.