The Roach

I had a roach in my house. I gave it 24 hours to leave the premises. Then I killed it.

I have three methods of killing roaches. One way is to grab a can of roach spray and give the creature a good dose. If that doesn't work, then I hit them with the can. The third way is to use a glue board.

The trouble with the glue board is that when I pass by I see the roach struggling to free itself. I feel sorry for the little creature. It didn't intend to harm me. It was just looking for a meal when it got stuck to the board.

But after watching the struggles of the last roach to be caught in the glue, I began to wonder if roaches have feelings. Are they tiny robots or are they conscious? I never thought much about it, but I decided to look it up. I went to Google and typed "are roaches conscious" into the search bar.

I found an article online that had sentences like:

"Far from being six-legged automatons, they [insects] can experience feelings akin to pain and suffering, joy and desire..."

and

"...insects have thoughts and feelings..."

and 

"Cockroaches have complex social lives."

So, are insects conscious? There is a growing consensus that insects are, indeed, conscious. They are aware of themselves as distinct from the world they inhabit. 

So I guess that when a cockroach gets stuck to a glue board, it is aware that it is having a bad day. All it can do is struggle until it dies or until it is killed. So it suffers. Its suffering and death is a tiny bit of karma headed my way.

Don't even ask me how I feel about killing a mouse.