Fifty-Four Miles Per Hour

Everyone, I've done it! I have made the greatest discovery of my life to date, and perhaps ever. This is the sort of discovery that will place my name in text books for children to read about for generations to come. Brace yourselves... Last night I discovered that the speed at which one must be traveling by automobile is in the range of 53-55 mph to ensure that a roach will not be able to maintain contact with your side window!

This discovery was a long time in the making. I first envisioned the idea for determining this years ago when I saw a roach inside my apartment. I quickly grabbed my can of Raid, somersaulted into position, and blasted away at the roach with my "kills bugs dead" can. But as I jumped to my feet and celebrated as if I were a gymnast who had just "stuck" the landing, I noticed something. That roach did not die right away, but was stumbling around in a fashion not unlike the one in which I see countless bar patrons at closing time. The first thought that immediately came to mind was at what speed must one travel to cause a roach to lose contact with your side window?

It was going to be a difficult discovery to make. First of all, roaches are disgusting. I generally do not get anywhere close to the repulsive creatures, and hence the can of Raid. Even after the filthy cretins are dead, I'll generally wait until my mom comes back to town and allow her to deal with them. However, yesterday evening fortune smiled upon me as the perfect circumstance arose. I was at the grocery store doing a little shopping, and upon exiting the store I placed my items in the back area of my car. Everything was fine as I went and opened the driver's door and got inside. It wasn't until I had closed the door that I realized that this filthy thing was on my window. Ordinarily I probably would have just taken the local streets back home, but I was afraid that 40-45 mph just wasn't going to be good enough. So, I decided that I had to take a minor detour to the highway. And so I got on the highway entrance ramp and pushed the pace. The entire time that this was going on I glanced over at my enemy. It did a good job of holding on for a while, but finally I saw it struggling. I have estimated that somewhere between 53 mph and 55 mph was the point where it could hold on no longer. It was a worthy opponent as at the point where it fell off I was getting very close to my exit. However, on that night I would have been more than willing to bypass my exit and push the pace to 75-80 mph to get that thing off. I just didn't want to have to sleep in my car that night.

So where does this discovery that I made rank with the all time great discoveries and the all time great records? Well, I would say that it deserves about as much or slightly more esteem as the recently set record of eating sixty-six hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes. These are both incredible feats of which to be proud.