Large Fierce Mammal

The following story has recently been declassified and can now be released to the public.

Back in my second year at Dalhousie University I was living in the men’s residence, Howe Hall. At the beginning of that year we started finding cockroaches everywhere. I had none in my room, but caught a couple in, of all places, the dining hall. Complaints from the residence council to the Dean of Men had little effect because his official position was that the university had measures in place to control vermin and the odd bug was inevitable. Never mind that this was an unprecedented infestation.

Anyway, I hatched a plot and asked everybody I knew to catch every roach they found and bring it to me alive. By the end of frosh week I had a bumper crop that was transferred to a large brown paper envelope I had acquired for the purpose.

At around 4 AM on the first Monday of classes, I waited for the Porter to leave his office on his rounds and crept with my several thousand little friends to the door of the office occupied by the Dean of Men on the ground floor of Howe Hall. Sliding the open end of the envelope under the door, I jiggled and tapped it until the envelope was empty.

The Dean of Men came to work at his usual time that morning, after I had already gone to my first class of the day. When I returned later to drop my books at my room before heading to the dining hall for lunch, it was to find the building swarming with people wearing the livery of a well known pest control company.

I lived in Howe Hall for all of my second and third years and never again saw a cockroach on the premises.