If you thought Toronto’s spontaneous two-day shrine to a dead raccoon lying on a sidewalk was touching, then Texas A&M’s three-week memorial service for a dead cockroach is the heartwarming holiday special you don’t want to miss.
Rosie the Roach’s short life ended in a stairwell in the anthropology building of the College Station, Texas, university. After lying belly-up, untouched and undisposed of, for two weeks, Rosie seemed headed towards a slow disintegration in that great trashcan in the sky. But instead, someone left a touching RIP note for it—and the tiny miracle began to blossom:
Luckily for the Internet, an A&M professor began documenting what happened next and shared it on Facebook, where it eventually made its way to Imgur. Rosie’s post-life existence ultimately involved Post-its, shrine candles, stuffed animals, cards, and a tiny funeral pyre, all created in its honor, presumably by anthropology students on their way to class and bored professors with empty office hours.
https://imgur.com/gallery/wtGxj
Not only does this display give us hope for humanity, it validates anthropology as a legitimate field of study—and that’s not an easy feat. It also makes it pretty clear that anthro is the nerdiest science of all. After all, there’s “owning pocket protectors,” and then there’s “carrying around markers in case you need to memorialize a dead insect you saw in a stairwell.”
Never let it be said that Texas doesn’t go big—even when they’re going small.
Photo via Imgur