RIP Rosie Roach

December 20, 2015 5:25 PM

"A professor at Texas A&M University posted these photos to Facebook. 'There has been a dead cockroach in the Anthropology building's stairwell for at least two weeks. Some enterprising person has now made her a little shrine.'" Things escalated from there.
posted by Kattullus (75 comments total)

Brilliant. Love it.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:31 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

.
posted by Tsuga at 5:33 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

[.]
posted by Tsuga at 5:33 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

*[.]*
posted by Tsuga at 5:33 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

🌸*[.]*🌸
posted by 1adam12 at 5:34 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

🌸*[.]*🌸
🔥🔥🔥🔥
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:38 PM on December 20, 2015 [40 favorites]

Previously, Conrad the Raccoon.
posted by gingerest at 5:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

>⚺⚺
posted by strixus at 5:53 PM on December 20, 2015

🌸🌸🌸🌸
🌸*[.]*🌸
🔥🔥🔥🔥
🌸🌸🌸🌸


We hardly knew ye.


Amazing grace how sweet the sound
posted by chasles at 5:54 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh finals period, is there no level of insanity and desire for procrastination you cannot induce?
posted by rtha at 5:58 PM on December 20, 2015 [45 favorites]

Has anyone informed the tekniker?
posted by bleep at 6:00 PM on December 20, 2015 [15 favorites]

Okay, did the department actually hold a party? This is the most important question!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:01 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
❤️🌸🌸🌸🌸❤️
❤️🌸*[.]*🌸 ❤️
❤️🔥🔥🔥🔥❤️
❤️🌸🌸🌸🌸❤️
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:01 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

👞
posted by mudpuppie at 6:02 PM on December 20, 2015 [21 favorites]

The heart of a champion.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:04 PM on December 20, 2015

                                 )
                               (
                             (
                                 (
                               )   )
                             (  (
           ___---``````````--.
          `.___               ##
              `--__________--`

posted by brennen at 6:06 PM on December 20, 2015 [12 favorites]

Gone way too soon. The world is just a bit dimmer now without Rosie.
posted by dogwalker at 6:09 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

"Skitter eternal, shiny and chitinous."
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:10 PM on December 20, 2015 [50 favorites]

She went just like Darth.
posted by GuyZero at 6:11 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Where was the bagpiper? She died in the line of duty.
posted by mermayd at 6:11 PM on December 20, 2015

Did you hear about the body they found in a stairwell at A&M?
They checked the dental records and found out it was the 1955 Aggie "Hide and Go Seek" Champion.
posted by AJScease at 6:13 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

That escalated awesomely.
posted by andreaazure at 6:13 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

With 15 minutes of posthumous internet celebrity, Rosie's death will touch more lives than the death of nearly any of the humans reading about it ever will.

Truth is stranger than fiction. But the internet is stranger than both.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:15 PM on December 20, 2015 [46 favorites]

Ask not for whom the roach burns, it burns for thee.
posted by Justinian at 6:19 PM on December 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

What is more touching, the gifts of cash or over 1 million views.

"De las patillas de un moro
tengo que hacer una escoba,
para barrer el cuartel
de la infantería española."
posted by clavdivs at 6:24 PM on December 20, 2015

It is precisely this sort of lunacy that gives me hope for humanity.
RIP Rosie.
Well done Texas A&M. Well done.
posted by pjsky at 6:24 PM on December 20, 2015 [9 favorites]

Dȳñer Morghulis.
posted by zakur at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

A++, moar like this pls.
posted by Glinn at 6:37 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is really hard to take. I knew Rosie, you know, back in '69. We hung out together for a bunch of months and got pretty close. Things were all chaos-like and Rosie provided that little bit of grounding that let me make it through those turbulent times. I mean, they were still crazy times but with Rosie around I never needed to be talked off the ledge. No no, not for real, but figurative-like. She always had a different perspective and kept me from going off alone - she was really against people being alone....

feel free to continue....
posted by ashbury at 6:44 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

I wonder if she was a friend of the Blessed Saint Gulik.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:01 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

Oh, one of my friends is a PhD student in their department! I'll have to ask her for funerary details.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:09 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

My friend reports that a memorial service was held, but she was already out of town.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:14 PM on December 20, 2015

expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it

-another famous cockroach
posted by barchan at 7:17 PM on December 20, 2015 [11 favorites]

Unbelievers. Should have asked Floki to build a boat for a Viking funeral. No way Rosie goes to Valhala now....
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:21 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is by far the finest thing Texas A&M has ever produced.
posted by MexicanYenta at 7:48 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

That roach had tenure.
posted by srboisvert at 8:02 PM on December 20, 2015 [9 favorites]

#jesuisroach
posted by grounded at 8:03 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is by far the finest thing Texas A&M has ever produced.

WHY WHY WHY must someone here always come along and make things serious with such outrageous duel provoking statements. How Dare You, Internet Person

I must slap you with the entire side of the ship from the Ocean Drilling Program that drills into the ocean floor to look at paleontology among other things, organized out of Texas A & M and THUS the news that Texas A & M has ALWAYS been extraordinarily good at dealing with dead things
posted by barchan at 8:15 PM on December 20, 2015 [17 favorites]

Move over #deadraccoonto!
posted by symbioid at 8:16 PM on December 20, 2015

psssssst Texas A&M is def. inferior

my building at UT Austin not only has primarily LIVING cockroaches but also we had a juvenile possum set up shop in our offices once. it hung out for several weeks before it fell out of a vent onto a horrified grad student's desk, whereupon it was swiftly caught and eventually evicted.

CLEARLY A&M ARE INFERIOR BIOLOGISTS, THEY CAN'T KEEP ANY WILDLIFE ALIVE IN THEIR BUILDINGS
posted by sciatrix at 8:25 PM on December 20, 2015 [21 favorites]

I lived in NYC and never saw a roach die a natural death. Usually they are squished like, well, a roach. I always thought roaches were like pigeons. None die a natural death, they just disappear.

RIP Rosie.
posted by AugustWest at 8:34 PM on December 20, 2015

whereupon it was swiftly caught and eventually evicted

I kind of what to know what happened between the "swiftly caught" and the "eventually evicted" but kind of don't want to. . .? Did it get. . .eaten?

But I already know that since it's UT it won't be anything close to the clever sarcasm of a cockroach funeral
posted by barchan at 8:41 PM on December 20, 2015

Two of my science women Metafilter crushes are getting into a UT-A&M fight. I can't tell if this is like a dream come true or my worst nightmare.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:45 PM on December 20, 2015 [14 favorites]

. . . mehitabel before i could argue rosie out of her philosophy she went and immolated herself on a patent cigar lighter i do not agree with her myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as she wanted to die herself
posted by jfwlucy at 8:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

And btw, back in **MY** day, UT students put cockroaches on paper sailboats and raced them down Waller Creek in the annual roach regatta.

I think it's possible that I just want to get in on the fight.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

because of a dead roach

personally this is a dream come true
posted by barchan at 8:48 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is awesome and pretty much one of my favorite things ever.

Also, in case anyone else was thinking, "This reminds me of something...I think it was also at a university...a German university, maybe? And students were putting up signs about something? And it was really funny?"

Well, here's the fpp about German students putting awesome meme print outs on a broken door.

(Of course, if I had read through the whole thread carefully before I started furiously googling "German university signs" "German students posted signs" I would have noticed this comment and saved myself a few minutes of googling.)
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:01 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Mudpuppie, you're clearly the winner as now I have "Roach Regatta" in my search history.

aw phooey I have to go get on a plane now, no more college cockroach fun
posted by barchan at 9:03 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh god no, we did not eat it. We stood around cheering for a while and collecting all the other basement grad students to have a look at the possum, and then we maneuvered it into a tote bucket where it hissed with impunity. MAYBE IF WE HAD BEEN LESS PROACTIVE A CLEVER FUNERAL MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED, BUT IT ESCAPED ALIVE.

Then we hauled it off to Waller Creek in a procession, where it hissed at us some more and then swam across the creek and vanished. We were impressed; the amount of shit in that creek would have poisoned lesser animals. When I handled the creek water for our undergrad 'how to science' course, we had to wear special gloves so we didn't get contaminated by anything nasty living in it.

Later I found it had been living in a box of specialized centrifuged tubes in our radioactive room, where it had left copious tufts of hair and possum crap. So maybe it wasn't all that unusual it survived after all. It must have had plenty of prey to eat; besides the cockroaches, I have also found several escaped geckoes and there's the odd tortoise egg, and there's always tons of crickets. Once someone lost a giant centipede in our building. I am going to hope the possum ate that, too.

(Actually, I also know of a live possum that spent upwards of an hour hanging out by the loading docks of another UT building hissing at anyone who walked by. Animal Control was apparently less than helpful. Plus there was my coworker who got beat up by a squirrel...)

ANYWAY IN CONCLUSION AUSTIN IS WAY BETTER AT LIVING IN HARMONY WITH ANIMALS, SUCK IT AUGGIES
posted by sciatrix at 9:08 PM on December 20, 2015 [17 favorites]

Resolved: Dream come true.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:13 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Up in Roach Heaven (it's God's kitchen), Rosie is looking down on us and smiling, or whatever roaches do (antennae wave?)
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:25 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Reefer madness.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:31 PM on December 20, 2015

That's one of the best laughs I've had in years.
posted by dbiedny at 9:56 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

...beaten up by a squirrel?
posted by Space Kitty at 10:02 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

Then we hauled it off to Waller Creek in a procession, where it hissed at us some more and then swam across the creek and vanished. We were impressed; the amount of shit in that creek would have poisoned lesser animals. When I handled the creek water for our undergrad 'how to science' course, we had to wear special gloves so we didn't get contaminated by anything nasty living in it.

Later I found it had been living in a box of specialized centrifuged tubes in our radioactive room

Okay, this sounds like the start of an awesome movie about a superhero possum who gained special powers after living in a radioactive room and swimming in a toxic waste creek.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:04 PM on December 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

I love that someone left Rosie a maxi pad. The sisterhood, always lookin' out for each other!
posted by TwoStride at 10:52 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

RIP, Rosie.
Love,
Delicata, Nugget, Ha'penny and Franz
posted by chance at 11:07 PM on December 20, 2015

. Sorry to be so late that I missed the funeral.
posted by Cranberry at 12:23 AM on December 21, 2015

Too bad nobody poured one out for Rosie. Probably would have been too messy.
posted by orrnyereg at 12:58 AM on December 21, 2015

Can't read the post-its, but one of them must have contained nothing but the word 'Why?'
posted by colie at 1:56 AM on December 21, 2015

Those poor eggs. Does anyone have the link for the scholarship fund?
posted by Kinbote at 4:44 AM on December 21, 2015

Those poor eggs. Does anyone have the link for the scholarship fund?

Regretfully, since Rosie laid 32 eggs, the best school the offspring will be able to afford on their scholarship funds is . . . Texas A&M.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 4:55 AM on December 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

Dan Jenkins is laughing somewhere.
posted by jfwlucy at 5:25 AM on December 21, 2015

I feel that the administration's decision to replace Reveille with a dead cockroach at next year's homecoming is taking the sentimentality a bit too far though.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:31 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

*dies laughing at Sciatrix* Then we hauled it off to Waller Creek in a procession, where it hissed at us some more and then swam across the creek and vanished. Are you suuuuure it didn't replace an elected official? It'd explain some things - a radioactive possum is running around the state capital in a suit and tie!

Geez, between the dead cockroach at A&M and the radioactive possum shit at UT, I'm completely changing how I peer review data from a Texas college.
posted by barchan at 7:39 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

You know, that would actually explain a whole lot of things about Texas politics. Especially if it went and had a chat with that rat bastard Lamar Smith at some point along the way... think that was around the time he started his whole "defund the NSF and bring it to heel" crusade. Goddamn opossum supervillains.

The squirrel attack thing was less cool than it sounds: I kept telling that particular coworker that feeding the campus squirrels was a bad idea, but she didn't believe me until one of them attacked her over her sandwich. It pretty well kicked her ass and stole her lunch, but it doesn't seem to have stopped her believing that squirrels are anything other than rats' big, dumb, hairy, antisocial, hateful Neanderthal counterparts.

_{More seriously, I do actually know a gentleman from UT who served on the ship you mention, barchan--we had him out to give a talk at our public lecture series on science last spring. He had only nice things to say, and it seemed like a really cool kind of initiative!}
posted by sciatrix at 8:50 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

superhero possum who gained special powers

Possums already have superpowers: they're immune to snake venom and can't get rabies!
posted by Panjandrum at 8:59 AM on December 21, 2015

Rosie, always the giver, donated her body to science.

Science, on the other hand...
posted by Sophie1 at 9:02 AM on December 21, 2015

Archy? Is that you?
posted by not that girl at 9:41 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Can't get rabies? Gonna need a [cite] for that.
posted by orrnyereg at 9:53 AM on December 21, 2015

It's like that thing with the dead raccoon in Toronto. I admit I'm pretty grossed out.
posted by discopolo at 10:33 AM on December 21, 2015

Possums already have superpowers: they're immune to snake venom and can't get rabies!

I was curious about this so I did a quick google, and it looks like they technically can get it, but it's extremely rare, at least according to the U.S. opossum society.

Here's a citation for their resistance to snake bites.

I wonder if anyone has studied their resistance to radioactive materials.

It's like that thing with the dead raccoon in Toronto.

Since I'm apparently trying as hard as possible not to get work done today, I googled dead raccoon in Toronto, and based on those results, I'm guessing this is what discopolo is referring to.

(This memorial for a dead animal thing does look less cute and more creepy when we're talking about something that's raccoon sized.)
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:44 AM on December 21, 2015

When they eventually become our overlords, I hope they take this into account.
posted by dazed_one at 12:33 PM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I just need to express that I'm shocked that techniker thing was back in March. I thought it was like 3 years ago. Time sure does fly.
posted by bleep at 3:31 PM on December 21, 2015

A++, moar like this pls.

where is the Techniker?
posted by bitteroldman at 4:33 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]