CNUws

Cockroaches of Potomac South Surveil, Antagonize Students

Kaitlyn Shackleton, September 2nd, 2024

They haven’t killed me yet. I guess I’m glad to not have been murdered, but I have a lot of articles to write now.

Anyway, I met with Dr. Benoch on Friday to discuss the newest change in CNU policy, which should be enacted within the month. Or the year. These things take a while to program. It’s still under wraps until it’s been fully coded, but change is coming, o students, it is coming.

I asked Dr. Benoch why she told me in that email the other day that we were being watched, and she said it was obvious, and that I needed to ask some people around campus because she didn’t feel like recapping the latest news to me. I was really ashamed not to know this news, so I went back as soon as I could and started thinking of interview questions.

This weekend, I asked various students if they were being watched. Most of their responses weren’t very helpful, and I think some of them reported me to campus police. I finally got some answers when I asked students near my own dorm of Potomac South, begrudgingly referred to as “PoSo” by many students.

Most of the answers I received boiled down to this: The cockroaches in PoSo are observing its students all over campus and actively making their lives worse.

When people told me this, I assumed that the roaches were only decreasing students’ quality of life through their mere presence. Roaches can trigger allergies, spread disease, and gross people out. But the true situation is more complicated and dire than I suspected.

I started paying attention to the roaches in my dorm instead of killing them without hesitation. They often stayed in place to watch me as I watched them. One stared at me for an hour or so. As soon as I went into another room to get some water, the roach left. I felt as if I had lost my truest friend in life.

I’ve been waking up feeling a bit sick ever since I move into PoSo, and I assumed it was because I was allergic to the roaches or mold or something in the dorm. Still, I suspected something else was going on, and set up a camera to record me as I slept a couple nights ago. As it turns out, I am allergic to something—the dog hairs that the roaches have laid under my nose as I sleep.

The roaches have attempted worse atrocities. I was in the bathroom yesterday when (I believe) one dropped a tiny anvil not even an inch away from one of my toes. I yelled at it and said it was terrible at its job, so hopefully I humiliated it into not trying that again.

I don’t know why the roaches are doing this. They’ll stare at me longingly, but they won’t talk. Res Life hired an exterminator the other day, but the roaches played a nasty trick on him and wrapped his legs in string, making him fall over. He didn’t want to deal with them after that. I was actually watching the exterminator when it happened and thought it was really funny, so I’ll give the roaches that. Still, I don’t think they’d spare me that same exact treatment… And while I see interest in their eyes when they stare at me, I see no love nor loyalty. So I won’t count on it.

I hope to find out soon what the residents of PoSo did to incur the wrath of the roaches, and why they’re so determined to turn our lives into episodes of Looney Toons.