Pray & Spray

Dad
April 14, 2003

DO 2330 1987—Roaches & How to Get Rid of Them!

(Dad calls an emergency meeting of the Family & comes in angry!:)

1. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! You have no idea how bad it is, how serious this is! We are in a desperate situation! How would you like to have to move out of here for three whole days‚ probably four, & take everything with you, can't leave a thing in the house! What kind of a desperate situation would that be?

2. HOW COME YOU BOYS HAVEN'T BEEN SPRAYING LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO! You know how I got after you in other places we've lived‚ don't you remember? How often did we spray at our other houses? (Fam: About once a month in warm weather.)—At least once a month! Well, I hear you haven't been doing that! How would you like to have to move out of here for almost a week before you could move back in, & take everything with you!—And where the Hell would you go?

3. SO YOU DON'T SPRAY FOR THE SAKE OF A FEW CATS & BIRDS—MY GOD, WHAT ABOUT THE HUMAN BEINGS? How come you guys haven't been spraying? (To new staff member seeing Dad for the first time:) Sorry you have to be here when I'm angry, but sometimes people like me when I'm angry‚ ha! They know I mean it! God help us, in Jesus' name!

FOGGING THE CRUISER!

4. I'LL JUST TELL YOU ONE LITTLE STORY & I WANT IT TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOU! We lived in a camper just 8 feet wide & 23 feet long, that's all, but we got infested with roaches in there from loading a bunch of stale bread from the bakery for dear Aaron's hogs. He insisted that he had to have that bread for the hogs, so we dumped it in & filled the bottom of the trailer floor up to the surface of the beds with those crumbs, just so it didn't come over on the beds, & apparently we got roaches galore with the bread because it had been sitting in big open barrels outside the bakery. We got so many roaches that if we turned out the light in the kitchen, in a few minutes you'd go back into the kitchen & the counter was just covered with roaches!—Roaches‚ roaches everywhere!

5. FINALLY I GOT DESPERATE & IT WAS THE LORD, I'M SURE, THAT I HAPPENED INTO THE ICE CREAM PARLOUR IN STRAWN, TEXAS, & the only place left to sit was across the table from this professional exterminator, & I began talking about it with him. I thought, "Boy‚ this is a good chance to ask him how to get rid of our roaches!" We'd been spraying in all the crevices, cracks & crannies & the closet & the cupboards under the sink with Shelltox, the most powerful spray we knew of, which is so dangerous it's even banned in the United States, & still we had roaches, & more roaches coming!—Little roaches, big roaches, all over the place!—In our drawers, in our clothes, in the food, even roaches in the refrigerator!

6. I SAID, "HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THEM, ANYHOW?" He said, "Dave, if you've got roaches that bad‚ no amount of your spraying is going to do it, never! You might as well forget it! The only thing you can do is take your whole family & move out of your camper & take everything with you down to the bare boards!—All your clothes, food stuffs, clean it out just like it was brand new! Then it'll take me about a day to tape it up—tape around the windows, tape around the doors, tape over the vents—everything sealed tight as a drum! Then I'll set up my professional fogger through a hole in the screen that I leave open in your door & I will fog it for at least three hours, just soak it, so it gets in every crack & cranny & between the walls & the woodwork & everywhere!"

7. I'LL NEVER FORGET, HE LEFT THE SEALING TO US‚ & IT TOOK US ABOUT ALL DAY TO DO IT! But we forgot one vent pipe, & when we started fogging, you should have seen the roaches pouring out of that vent pipe! He said‚ "You'd better get up there fast & seal that one too or it won't do any good!" One little 23-foot by 8–foot camper & it took us two days to move out with all of our stuff‚ a day to seal up all the windows, & then we had to wait three days before we could move back in again!—Six days total!

ROACHES—MULTIPLICATION & DISEASES!

8. HE SAID, "HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW FAST THOSE ROACHES CAN MULTIPLY? Rats, mice & guinea pigs never multiply as fast as roaches can! It only takes two to get started—two full-grown mature roaches‚ one male & one female—& pretty soon you've got the mother roach dragging around her egg sacks under her tail. Then you've got 1400 more roaches from one mother's egg sack laying 1400 eggs in every crack & cranny in your place! And they mature in just a few weeks & you've got 700 pairs‚ each pair laying another 1400 roaches!" Has anybody got a calculator? Get one!

9. I WANT TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOU ABOUT ROACHES!—Not only about how rapidly they multiply, but they carry almost every known disease that flies carry!—Cholera! Cholera will give you a Hell of a bellyache like you never had in your life before! It kills people with pain! Some of you ought to know who have had it. I know what it's like. We had to take cholera shots in the army & I was sick as Hell for three days! The cure was almost worse than the disease! And then before they'd let us out of Israel they said, "You've got to have shots to go to Cyprus or they won't let you in. They'll put you in detention if you don't have all these shots." So stupid us, we went ahead & got the shots & I got sick as a dog again with cholera—just from the shot, which is supposed to prevent the disease!—Ha!

10. CHOLERA! TYPHUS! TYPHOID FEVER!—EVERY STINKING DIRTY DISEASE YOU CAN THINK OF, ROACHES CARRY!—And all they have to do is run across your skin & run across your food & you'll have it! I have come here tonight to scare the Hell out of you of what roaches can do! Almost nothing worse of any kind of a plague or pestilence could plague our existence here more than roaches! But you're afraid to spray for the sake of a few birds & cats, which we can get a lot more of any time! I hate to kill them all‚ but my God, I'd rather kill them right now, tomorrow, than have some of you dying from the stuff that these roaches can carry!

11. ALL RIGHT, HAVE YOU GOT YOUR CALCULATOR? From one pair of roaches, first you've got 700 pairs with the first egg laying. Take 700 times 1400—each pair lays another 1400 in just a few weeks. (Fam: 980,000.) Nearly one million roaches you have in a few weeks! All right, divide that by two. (Fam: 490‚000.) Okay, multiply that by 1400. (Fam: 686,000,000.) In a few more weeks you've got six hundred million roaches, & you will never get rid of them, ever, just in a few weeks!

BATTLING ROACHES IN SPAIN!

12. I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT WHEN YOU GET ROACHES YOU ARE IN A DESPERATE SITUATION! We moved to an apartment in Madrid once that was just loaded with roaches, but it was the only decent apartment we could find. So we sealed that place up tight & sprayed thoroughly with Shelltox, which contains pyrethrine, the most dangerous kind of a poison! It begins with "pyr", which means fire! Shelltox is so dangerous it is banned in the United States! But we found long ago that it's the only thing that will really do the trick at all if there's any chance of getting rid of them!

13. WE SEALED UP ALL THE DOORS & THE WINDOWS & EVERYTHING IN THAT APARTMENT & THEY SPRAYED THAT PLACE THICK! When you do it with Shelltox you have to take a deep breath, run in & spray as long as you can hold your breath, then run back outside! Then you have to just go away and leave it all day, and then come back, take a deep breath, hold your breath‚ run in and peel off all the tape and open the windows and doors‚ then run back outside and catch your breath!—And you can only do it in several dashes.

14. WELL, WE GOT RID OF THE ROACHES—FOR ABOUT ONE DAY! The place was loaded with dead roaches‚ but then they began coming in from the neighbours. Somebody else just took over the territory! We wondered how in the World they were getting in. Of course, through cracks and crannies, but do you know where I found they were the worst? I kept finding roaches swimming around in the toilet!

ROACHES—WORST OF THE DEVIL'S PESTS!

15. GOD MADE ROACHES TO BE THE DEVIL'S PESTS TO ANNOY PEOPLE FOR BEING DIRTY AND FILTHY AND NOT GETTING RID OF THEM, THAT'S WHERE ROACHES COME FROM! It's one of the few creatures in this World that can run like Hell, swim like mad underwater for great distances and even fly! We lived on the 7th floor of the Girasol Apartment-Hotel in Tenerife, and I thought‚ "Well thank God we're up high!" If you're right on the ground floor it's even worse, the roaches can just run in and out. But we were still getting roaches—I watched them fly in from the trees, fly right over onto our terrace!—7 floors up!

16. ROACHES ARE ONE OF THE WORST PESTS YOU CAN EVER POSSIBLY GET! You thought rats, flies and mosquitoes were horrible, but they are nothing compared to roaches! Roaches are just about the worst kind of pest you can ever have! They carry all kinds of diseases and they multiply like mad! Look, two generations and you've got six hundred million roaches from one pair!

17. SO YOU THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A LITTLE ANNOYANCE, A SLIGHT NUISANCE, TO HAVE HAD A ROACH OR TWO IN THE CUPBOARD OR UNDER THE SINK. Just give them a few weeks and you're going to have six hundred million roaches in this house and we will never be able to control them unless we all move out and take everything with us! How long do you think it would take a professional exterminator to seal up this house?—Several days, right? And then fog it. A house this size it would take them all day to fog it. They'd have to seal up all the vents or they'll just run out and come back. Then you have to let it set for at least three days.

18. OUR CRUISER WAS ONLY 23 FEET BY 8 FEET & 9 FEET HIGH, and just for that little thing it took us two days to move out with all of our stuff, one day for him and us to tape it all up, and three days to leave it fogged. How long do you think it would take for this house? Do you want to all have to move out in order to save the birds and the cats? (Fam: No, Sir!)

19. MY GOD, HOW COULD YOU HAVE NEGLECTED TO SPRAY? How come? You know how I kept after you spraying in other places we lived at least once a month when it was warm! In one country we had the exterminators come first, and I think they wanted to come back every week for awhile until we got rid of all the roaches. Finally they kept coming so often we decided we'd buy the stuff ourselves! So we bought a sprayer and the same poison and the boys learned to do it themselves, and we got rid of the roaches and we kept them out by spraying!

20. NOW YOU DON'T SUPPOSE FOR A MINUTE I AM GOING TO ALLOW THIS PLACE TO BECOME ROACH-INFECTED JUST TO SAVE A FEW CATS! For God's sake‚ at least let's save the people before we have to move out and let the roaches take over! Is that what you want to do? (Fam: No, Sir!)

21. DO YOU WANT TO HAVE SIX HUNDRED MILLION ROACHES IN A FEW WEEKS? (Fam: No‚ Sir.) Well, that's what you're going to have! Just by the third generation, think of it, from one pair you've got over six hundred million roaches. That's why the man just shook his head and laughed at me when I said‚ "What kind of spray can I use? What's going to do it?" He said, "Dave, if they're that bad you'll never get rid of them without fogging!"

22. I'M TELLING YOU, IF ANYTHING'S GOING TO TAKE OVER THIS WORLD BESIDES THE DEVIL, IT LOOKS LIKE THE ROACHES COULD DO IT, and they just about have in some parts of the World! And you've got to keep after them or they'll come from the neighbours after you get rid of them. That's how serious it is that you boys have neglected to spray. I'm just shocked that you haven't been spraying, just because you were afraid that some of the cats might get it. My God, it would be better to kill all the birds and cats and save the people, rather than let this place get roach-infested!

23. WE GOT ANOTHER ONE IN OUR CUPBOARD TONIGHT. Thank God for that roach, at least it's getting you the lecture you need! I don't ever want to hear that you boys have neglected to spray again, at least once a month, and you may have to spray every week until you get this thing under control‚ until you never see another roach! I mean it! They can run you out of house and home! They carry horrible diseases, they can kill you! They love to live in sewers and eat the dung and lay their eggs in it—like flies, only they're worse than flies—and then run around all over your floors and tables and food and you!

ROACH ATTACK AT CAFE DE PARIS!

24. I'LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME WE WERE SITTING IN CAFE DE PARIS, later our favourite place in Tenerife, & we kept seeing these great big roaches running across the floor. We spoke about it to one of the waiters in Spanish & he said back to us, "Oh, live & let live!" But finally we insisted that he do something about another roach we saw, & what do you suppose he did? Well, he figured we didn't like the roach around us, so he just kicked it with his foot & chased it away!

25. UNTIL ONE AFTERNOON...TELL'M WHAT HAPPENED‚ MAMA! (Maria: The worst thing!—It started crawling up my leg!) That's when I took things into my own hands, let me tell you! I took my newspaper & I began swattin' & battin' & stompin' around there & I raised such a furor they finally figured they had to come & help to calm me down & to keep from running away all the trade! I made such a racket & we stomped around & hit & swatted & kicked & stomped until we were sure we got rid of that roach! And I'll tell you, they kept them away from us from then on! I don't think they ever got them exterminated, but they knew we didn't like roaches! I think we did hear that they did some spraying & tried to do a little bit better if one customer was going to raise such a fuss, & we were pretty good customers too.

AN EMERGENCY SITUATION!

26. ROACHES! I JUST CAN'T SAY ENOUGH ABOUT ROACHES! (Maria: I heard they've even been climbing over people's toothbrushes‚ so maybe that's where we got some of these dreadful diseases that we've had lately.) You mean you've had roaches that bad & you did nothing about it? Now, Son, you're usually the one that's in charge of that & responsible for that, how come you have not been spraying? (Fam: We were going to spray one time for flies & you said the poison could kill the cats, so we didn't spray.) All right, let it kill the cats, the roaches can kill you!

27. YOU MAY THINK A ROACH IS NOT MUCH, JUST A LITTLE BUG SO BIG, BUT IT CAN KILL THE LIFE OUT OF YOU! He can kill you dead with the diseases he carries, one of the worst pests God ever made! Sometimes I wonder! I'm sure it's one of the pestilences & one of the curses & one of the plagues of God's judgements on uncleanliness & neglect!

28. I DON'T EVER WANT TO HEAR ABOUT ANOTHER ROACH ON THIS PLACE! I want you to get that equipment tomorrow and get enough poison to soak the house & garden, & if it kills every bird & our cats, I'm sorry, that's too bad, but I would rather have it do that than kill you! And I don't ever want to hear that you ever neglected to spray again‚ ever!

29. IT'S AN EMERGENCY SITUATION! You need to make it your main job to finish spraying this place! First spray all the sewers & drains & then all around the house where the house meets the ground—at least a foot up the wall and a foot out from the wall—so they'll be killed dead before they even get inside!

30. ANOTHER THING, WHEN WE DISCONNECTED ALL THE SINK DRAINS, were you careful to stuff something in the open end of the drain to make sure no varmints can get through? (Fam: Yes, Sir.) Is every single drain stuffed with a big enough rag that it's stuffed in tight into that open drain that goes to the sewer, but big enough that it can't go on in & stop up the drain? Is every single drain here stopped up good? In any case where there's no way to stop it up‚ reconnect it & catch your water in a bowl or something.

ROACHES ARE MONSTERS!

31. (TO ONE OF THE GIRLS:) ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, SWEETHEART? YOU LOOK TIRED. Had a big day with the children? It's a big job! But I'll tell you, it's nothing compared to trying to get rid of roaches! All the children we've got altogether here is nothing compared to six hundred million babies!—Running all over the place & over the children! They'll crawl around your mouth if they can smell food, they'll crawl into your mouth if they think there's anything in there they can eat, & carry with them six million other germs to make you sick as Hell & kill you!

32. FROM NOW ON WHEN YOU SEE A ROACH, IT IS A MONSTER, A DANGEROUS MONSTER THAT YOU HAVE GOT TO GET RID OF‚ & you've gotta get rid of it quick or it can kill you! Roaches are not just a little pest. Flies are nothing compared to roaches, even mosquitoes are nothing compared to roaches. They can give you all kinds of diseases too, but the roaches are the worst of all! They multiply faster, they have more babies & more germs, it's horrible what those little monsters can do!

33. FROM NOW ON‚ EVERY TIME YOU SEE A ROACH I HOPE THAT GOD-DAMNED ROACH ABSOLUTELY SCARES THE HELL OUT OF YOU, TILL YOU DON'T REST UNTIL YOU'VE KILLED IT! And don't ever let me hear that you boys have neglected to spray! You're going to have to spray now to catch up with the situation until you get this place thoroughly sprayed & get on top of that situation before it's out of control!—Out of our control.

34. WHERE COULD WE MOVE YOU & ALL YOUR STUFF IN ORDER TO CLEAN OUT EVERYTHING IN HERE including foodstuffs, survival supplies‚ papers, everything!—Everything you don't want coated in spray & poisonous deadly mist!

35. DO YOU REALISE WHAT YOU BOYS HAVE ENDANGERED US WITH?—ONE OF THE WORST KIND OF PESTILENCES THERE IS, ONE OF THE WORST KIND OF PLAGUES THERE IS! I don't ever want to hear that you boys have neglected to spray again! It could be disastrous for us if those roaches get too much of a head start, & it looks like they've had a head start!

36. HOW COME YOU DIDN'T TELL ME? I didn't even hear that you had roaches until yesterday, then I heard about it because we had a great big one under the sink in our room! Then the truth came out that you'd been having roach problems in the rest of the house too! My God, hadn't I scared you enough before about roaches? Well, I hope to Hell that I have scared the Hell out of all of you tonight that you will absolutely be terrorised the next time you see a roach! You'll be frightened half out of your wits & you will chase that roach until you murder it!

37. I WANT YOU GUYS TO STOP EVERYTHING THAT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT NECESSARY TO SAVE LIFE, & GET OUT & START SPRAYING & spray this place until you get this house thoroughly sprayed & all the drains sprayed & every wall & footing around the whole house! And you're going to have to take all the dishes out of the cupboards & everything out from under the sink, & you're going to have to spray thoroughly under there—not with the same stuff you use outside—but you're going to have to spray inside with Shelltox, the kind that you have to hold your breath while you're spraying & run outside. You don't dare breathe it or it'll kill you!

38. THAT'S THE KIND OF A MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN US INTO BY NOT SPRAYING! Why did you think we could get away without spraying, Son? You know we've always done it before. Do you want us to have to move out & let the roaches have the place in order to save a few birds or a few cats? I'd hate to have the cats get sick & die, but that's a hell of a lot better than having you get sick & die, right? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) And that could be why some of you have been so sick, because one of the favourite things roaches carry is cholera, typhus & typhoid fever & bowel diseases‚ stomach diseases!

BIG JOSH—AMOEBIC DYSENTERY!

39. REMEMBER BIG JOSH? HE WAS A GREAT BIG HUSKY GIANT OF A MAN! When he got on television with that big black bushy beard appealing for a campground or someplace for all of us 125 hippies to park, I said, "My God, nobody's going to give us any place to park, you scare the Hell out of them! You scare the wits out of them just looking at you! You just absolutely terrorised them!"

40. JOSH WAS DOWN IN THE UPPER AMAZON COUNTRY WITH THIS GUY WHO WAS RESEARCHING THE AMAZONIAN ABORIGINES, the kind that were still head-hunting etc. Well‚ he didn't lose his head, but he nearly lost his life, because that's another thing that roaches carry, amoebic dysentery. Josh got amoebic dysentery until he was shittin' all over the place, all day long, runnin' down his pants leg, & lost 40 pounds in two weeks! Is that what you want to do? Do you want some of these children to die? Do you want some of these people to get so God–damned sick they die of stuff like those roaches carry?!

41. I WANT TO STRIKE THE FEAR OF GOD INTO YOU BOYS THAT DO THE SPRAYING SO THAT YOU'LL NEVER EVER NEGLECT TO DO THAT SPRAYING AGAIN! And I want to strike terror into your hearts about roaches, so that you'll never stop until you kill that roach! Do you hear me? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) Roaches are one of the worst plagues that can possibly infest a house & carry all these death-dealing diseases, diseases that kill, as well as make you deathly sick, even if you don't die, in God's mercy.

OUR LIVES ARE IN YOUR HANDS!

42. BUT OBVIOUSLY THE LORD HAS LET US GET SOME ROACHES BECAUSE YOU BOYS HAVE BEEN LETTING DOWN ON THE JOB & NEGLECTING YOUR DUTY! Why?! Give me one good excuse for wanting to save cats & birds instead of people! Our lives are in your hands, boys! If you don't spray, the roaches are going to run us off the place! Do you realise what that roach is that you saw in the bathroom, that roach that you let get away? My God, what do I do when I see a roach in our room? I practically raise Hell! I scream bloody murder for somebody to come help catch a roach, one little roach, because I know what they can do!

43. I'LL NEVER FORGET THAT EXPERIENCE OF FOGGING JUST THAT ONE LITTLE CAMPER‚ ONE LITTLE FAMILY OF SIX PEOPLE—IT TOOK US TWO DAYS JUST TO MOVE OUT! Thank God we had a whole camp to move into when at that time TSC was vacant. We had several cottages to take all of our stuff into, thank God, where we could spend the next four days: One day to tape it & fog it‚ then 3 days to wait for it to kill every damn roach & every damn egg in the place! Then it took us about 2 or 3 days to move back in again. The whole operation cost us at least a week!

44. WHERE WOULD YOU MOVE? HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE US TO MOVE OUT ALL THE PEOPLE AND EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT, the equipment and the supplies, to empty this place to the bare bone & the floors & the walls? How long do you think it would take professional exterminators to tape up this place, every aperture, every window closed tight & taped to prevent the roaches from just running out the cracks! They had to fog the Ark—23 feet by 8 & 9 feet clear to the top off the ground—for 3 hours, that small space!

SANDFLIES! FLORIDA KEYS—MOSQUITOES!

45. (SMACKS A BUG!) DO YOU KNOW WHAT THESE LITTLE RASCALS ARE? Some people call them gnats‚ but I know those little buggars! When all of a sudden you feel something biting you, that's that little tiny gnat who's so small he can fly right through the screen without even stopping. They're called sandflies! In spite of all your screens & everything, those little rascals can fly right on through without even pausing, they're so small!—And they bite, & you can feel it! But thank God, one thing about their bite, it doesn't last. It doesn't raise a lump like mosquito bites‚ & it doesn't carry diseases, I hope! I don't know too much about sandflies, except I remember we had plenty of them down on Key Largo, along with clouds of mosquitoes!

46. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MOSQUITOES ARE UNTIL YOU GET DOWN IN THE FLORIDA KEYS! In Miami they pretty well cured the problem. They used to bring in planeloads of mosquito hawks—you call them dragonflies—& let them out in the air above the city to help kill all the mosquitoes. They drained all the swamps around Miami & then they sent around the Mosquito Patrol. If they caught you with one little dish, one little can sitting out where it could catch water, they fined you five Dollars on the spot for every can they found open out where it could catch rain! Even an old tire lying out there could breed mosquitoes & they'd fine you for it! And they finally licked the mosquito problem, because they wanted the tourists.

47. BUT THEY HADN'T LICKED IT DOWN IN THE KEYS WHEN WE MOVED DOWN THERE & developed that Sharon Colony trailer park, & the mosquitoes actually attacked you in clouds! So as we got down in the mosquito country, as hot as it was, we would roll up our car windows tight for several miles before we got to the trailer park. Can you imagine how you'd sweat in that car‚ as damp & humid as it was! When we got to our trailer we pulled up just as close to the trailer door as we could, where the car door was just opposite the trailer door, & we honked, & whoever was inside the trailer got ready. The car windows were shut so we had to yell, "Okay, now!"—And they flung open the trailer door at the same instant we flung open the car door, & we literally dove into that trailer & practically sprawled on the floor, so they could slam the door real quick to keep the clouds of mosquitoes out!

48. I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT HAPPENED TO POOR BROTHER WARE! How many of you remember Brother Ware? Dear Brother Ware was that missionary to Spain & Cuba that opened his church to us in Tucson. But I can remember when we knew him years before that & we invited him to bring his boat to our trailer park where he could anchor it just a few blocks away in the bay & cooperate with us in the ministry there.

49. SO HE TRIED TO HAUL HIS BIG HEAVY BOAT ON A TRAILER OF ALL THINGS, & it was too heavy for the trailer & he had blowouts. He didn't want to desert the boat there‚ he was afraid it would get stripped, so he had to leave his family & walk several miles. Finally he got to a filling station, & he was practically screaming at me in agony on the telephone! He said, "Dave, I don't care what happens to the boat, I can't get any further, I can't even unhitch this trailer from my car, the thing is so heavy, & the mosquitoes are eating us alive, there are clouds of them all over our skin! Come get me before they kill us!" Poor guy! I had to drive 40 miles out in the swamp there to pick up him & his family, his wife & three children I think it was. Those mosquitoes can practically pick you up & carry you off!

"DOWN ON THE FARM!"SILLY SONGS & HOW TO GET RID OF THEM!

50. IT'S LIKE THAT OLD SONG MY DADDY USED TO SING ABOUT "DOWN ON THE FARM": "We used brick bats for our soap!" Have you ever seen any of that home-made soap the size of a brick & hard & sharp? The song is talking about the city boys‚ the New York guys that went out to the farm to get a paid vacation by working on the farm‚ which a lot of them used to do in those days. They'd take their vacation on the farm & see what the farm was like. After all, they were smart city slickers, & they were bound to be smarter than any farmer, they could get out there & tell the farmer how to run his farm, you know? But they got out there on the farm & found out the farmers were a lot smarter than they were! In fact, the city boys were pretty dumb by comparison, & the farm life was pretty rough! (Sings:)

51. "WE USED BRICK BATS FOR OUR SOAP‚ DRIED OUR FACES ON A ROPE!" Did you ever use one of those old hemp towels? "That was how life was down on the farm! The mosquitoes, they were fierce‚ any armor they could pierce, with a can opener under each arm!" I don't remember the whole song. Sara knows a lot of those old songs, she can sing you the one about the monkey some time! My Dad used to sing that one too, real funny songs! My Daddy used to sing a lot of funny songs, only my brother used to sing worse ones when he came home from college!

52. I MADE THE MISTAKE OF SINGING ONE STUPID LITTLE SONG FOR MY POOR KIDS ONE NIGHT & THEY'VE NEVER FORGOTTEN THAT SONG YET! It's the silliest, stupidest song you ever want to hear about‚ about parking your gum on the bedpost for the night! I was in a silly humorous mood one night, & because I like to see the kids laugh‚ I sang'm this song. They can sing it yet! It shows you how careful you've gotta be around kids! That silly crazy song! You always remember the things you shouldn't remember & they run through your head. Some of those songs have worn a groove in my brain!

53. MY SISTER & MY BROTHER, JUST LIKE TEENAGERS TODAY, LOVED TO LISTEN TO THE RADIO & ALL THOSE WORLDLY SONGS‚ & THEY'D JUST WEAR A GROOVE IN MY MIND! I had a tremendous memory for music, just like Techi here. She can hear a song one time & practically sing it back to you right on the spot! She has a terrific memory for music & lyrics.

54. WELL, I FINALLY FOUND THE CURE! It took some preacher to give me this advice. In the middle of some sermon he said, "There's only one way to get those songs out of your head. There's only one way to get rid of the darkness, & that is to turn on the light! The minute the Devil puts one of those songs into your head, start singing a hymn, start singing a Gospel song to get rid of it!"

PRAY & SPRAY!

55. WELL, I WANT TO WARN YOU, I DON'T CARE HOW MANY HYMNS YOU SING, THOSE ROACHES AREN'T GOING TO GO AWAY, THAT WON'T DO IT! You're going to have to get out there & start spraying!—Praying & spraying! You sprayers, our lives are in your hands‚ and I don't ever ever want to hear that you neglected to spray again! I think you'd have to spray almost every week to keep ahead of the situation; & from now on, until we get rid of those roaches, you're going to have to spray every day, & I mean it! Spray around the base of the house & at least a foot or two up the wall, so that it can kill the roaches before they get in, & maybe a foot or two out from the base of the building on the ground.

56. (HEARS A NOISE:) WHAT WAS THAT? WHEN YOU HEAR AN UNUSUAL NOISE, BELOVED, INVESTIGATE! Maybe the roaches are in there throwing the dishes off the shelf! (Fam: The baby tipped over her chair, but she's okay.) TTL! What's the matter‚ wasn't it properly secured? Remember‚ an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! You failed on your ounces, & now you're going to have to use pounds to cure this roach problem!—And I mean it is serious, it is a desperate situation when you're getting roaches in that kitchen! You need to spray inside cupboards & kitchen sink cupboards & places like that where they love to hide & live & breed & come out at night & run all over the tables & the sinks & the chairs!

57. IN FLORIDA WE DIDN'T DARE HANG A SHIRT OR A PAIR OF PANTS OR A COAT IN THE CLOSET ON WHICH YOU HAD SPILLED A TINY DROP OF FOOD or a little grease spot of gravy‚ or the next morning you'd wake up with a nice great big hole where the food spot had been! You would have liked to have gotten rid of the spot‚ but not that way! The roaches go in & climb all over your clothes looking for food spots, & if you just hang your clothes in the closet overnight, the roaches come & just eat the cloth away to get the food!

58. THEY CAN SMELL FOOD A MILE AWAY! I never saw the like of the way roaches are, ants too. You'd better keep ahead of your ants too, but at least ants are clean creatures compared to roaches & don't carry a lot of diseases. But the roaches actually eat holes in your clothes just to eat the food away. You think they haven't got teeth? Well, how did they eat those holes in our clothes? Sunday comes, you take your good coat out of the closet to wear to church, & here's a great big hole where the roaches had eaten the cloth away to get the food out. They must have some kind of teeth!

59. I KNEW A WOMAN IN MIAMI‚ THE RATS CHEWED HER TOE OFF WHILE SHE WAS SLEEPING!—Well, not the whole toe, but they bit a big hunk out of it! It got infected & she got gangrene. So thank God we're not having any rats that hungry. We feed the rats—we feed them poison! We don't even move into a place until our clean-up crew has gotten in there & cleaned the place up & exterminated any rats & killed any roaches & spread so much poison around that I don't think you could even get athlete's foot running around barefoot on the carpets, because everything's dead, even the microbes & the germs & the fungi etc.!

60. IT'S NO FUN, I'LL TELL YOU‚ JUST BECAUSE IT'S CALLED FUNGI! It's no fun when you get that fungus between your toes! How many of you have had athlete's foot at some time or another? That's why you can't wear shoes or socks any more than necessary in hot weather, because they love to breed in nice warm, moist places. You can also get what they call "crotch rot" because of fungus, if you don't keep yourself clean enough & wear airy underwear that gives you enough air.

61. WELL, I DIDN'T BRING A WATCH...OH, THERE'S A CLOCK ON THE WALL. That reminds me of the story about the evangelist who came along & was always preaching too long, so one day he looked around for a clock & he said, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what time it is, have I preached too long?" And the elder of the church said in a serious tone, "Well, there's a calendar on the wall over there!"

62. WELL, IF THIS LITTLE TALK SAVES YOUR LIFE‚ & AT THE LEAST SAVES US HAVING TO MOVE AGAIN, I THINK IT'S WORTH IT!—And maybe it'll go beyond this to wherever you go from now on, to remember that roaches are not just some little annoyance, some little pest, some innocent little critter that happens to crawl out from underneath your sink, but roaches are monsters, deadly monsters! Boy, this would make one great "Life with Grandpa" series, wouldn't it?

63. I DON'T WANT YOU BOYS TO DO ANYTHING ELSE NOW UNTIL YOU'VE SPRAYED THIS PLACE SEVERAL DAYS IN A ROW, & I don't want to hear about any more roaches!—And don't you ever ignore a little roach again & just say, "Oh well, we're bound to have a few little pests around." They're not little pets‚ they're not even just little pests, they are deadly!—And you can let this place get so full of roaches you'll never be able to get rid of them, without an extermination company coming & doing it! I don't want that to happen, do you?

64. AND DON'T YOU DARE LET IT HAPPEN, DO YOU HEAR ME, BOYS? (Boys: Yes, Sir!) Don't you dare ever neglect to spray again‚ or it could cost somebody's life! Do you want to kill some of these people? (Boys: No, Sir!) Then you keep busy spraying until you get rid of every God-damned roach here‚ do you hear me? (Boys: Yes, Sir!)—Not only spray around the house to keep them from coming in, but I suggest you spray inside & outside at ground level, to discourage them from even coming inside! They'll walk across the spray & hopefully they'll die before they get in.

65. THEN SOMEBODY CAN START WITH THE KITCHEN USING THE SHELLTOX, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THEY LOVE TO LIVE, especially under the sink where it's dirty & you're apt to have little food particles & spill dishwater that's full of nourishment for the damn roaches! You're going to have to move every dish out of that kitchen‚ off of all the shelves, everything, clean off the shelves, clean out from underneath the sink, take everything out of the kitchen! Now this is because you neglected to spray!

66. YOU'D BETTER PRAY & SPRAY! Maybe that would be a good title for this! Close up the kitchen so nobody can get in there & warn the people so they don't come in. With all the cupboards open‚ you take the Shelltox & you take a deep breath & you start praying & spraying as long as you can hold your breath, & you don't dare take another breath until you get outside the door where there's fresh air. Then you stand there until you've caught your breath, stay there a few minutes until you've got your blood well oxygenated again, & this time you have to start holding your breath before you come through the door. I'm just telling you folks how to de-bug a place!

67. TAKE A DEEP BREATH OF THAT NICE FRESH AIR FROM OUTDOORS & RUN IN THE DOOR & SPRAY AS LONG AS YOU CAN HOLD YOUR BREATH TO GET BACK OUTSIDE AGAIN! Spray thoroughly under those sinks, in those cupboards, on those shelves—& remember, the stuff is deadly! Don't spray any dishes, don't spray in the refrigerator with all that food, of course. You can spray on the floor & especially along where the cupboards meet the floor & where the walls meet the floor, & around the window sills where they come in, & around the door sills where they come in. And don't dare take a breath in there! Just spray as long as you can hold your breath to get outside again & stand out there & breathe fresh air for awhile until you're ready to make another charge into the kitchen. That's how you have to get rid of them inside!

68. THAT CHEMICAL SPRAY WE USE IN OUR SPRAYERS OUTSIDE‚ I DON'T THINK YOU CAN SPRAY INSIDE WITH THAT STUFF, I WOULDN'T TRY IT, BUT THE SHELLTOX, LET ME TELL YOU, IT DOES THE TRICK! It kills everything, including you if you breathe it, so watch out! Don't breathe it! But then leave the kitchen shut up as long as you can. This will have to be sometime between meals after the dishes are all done & before the cooks have to come in for the next meal. Leave it shut up‚ doors & windows shut, taped shut so nobody goes in there for anything, is that clear? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) Wait at least an hour or two if you can‚ the longer the better, a couple of hours would be even better. Be sure that you've got any food out of there & anything you need to get out, the dishes should already be out, & spray that place good until you get rid of the roaches you've already got & are already breeding & multiplying & will be not just a half-a-million in a few weeks, but six hundred million!

69. HAVE I SCARED YOU ENOUGH TO HELP YOU REALISE HOW SERIOUS IT IS TO DO THAT PRAYING & SPRAYING? Boys? (Boys: Yes, Sir!) Don't come to me any more telling me, "We've got a few roaches in the kitchen." A few—how many pairs? If you've got a few roaches in the kitchen, even if you've got a dozen‚ you've got six pairs. How much is six times 1400? (Fam: 8,400.) In a few weeks with six pairs under the kitchen sink you're going to have 8,000 roaches, living anywhere, breeding inside the walls‚ under the floors, in the ceilings, everywhere!

70. NOW I HOPE I HAVE SCARED THE HELL OUT OF YOU ABOUT ROACHES, SO YOU'LL NEVER TOLERATE ANOTHER ROACH, NEVER EVER EVER, & you will thoroughly spray this place, every inch where it does any good. You'll have to spray the kitchen separately now because that's where they've taken up their happy home, & they're very happy to live there as long as you keep feeding them, just by leaving a dirty dish on the sink or not wiping the counter off clean with soap & water instead of with some food-filled dirty dishrag!

71. KEEPING THINGS SPIC-&-SPAN & CLEAN IS ONE OF THE CURES, SO THAT YOU DON'T FEED THEM, IS THAT CLEAR? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) Don't use dirty tablecloths that had food spilled on them. Don't think you can just fold them up & put them away or you're going to be feeding these monsters! You may find a hole in it & next time you pull out the tablecloth it looks like lace! I'm not kidding, they're terrible!

72. HAVE I SCARED YOU ENOUGH ABOUT ROACHES THAT YOU'LL NEVER EVER AGAIN NEGLECT YOUR DUTY TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY here & these dear children from these horrible, horrible awful vicious creatures! When I see a roach, to me he's a monster out of Hell as far as I'm concerned & I can't kill him quick enough! Maybe you've heard me yelling when we've had a roach in our room.

73. DON'T YOU THINK IT WAS WORTH MY COMING IN HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THOSE MONSTERS FROM HELL? And I want you to run those roaches out of here, boys‚ & kill'm dead & get rid of'm before they kill us! Get as much poison as you think you're going to need to saturate the house & garden! If it kills a few birds or the cats, it's better than having it kill us, & I mean it! And don't you stop & don't you do another thing, unless it's a life & death emergency! This is a life & death emergency, that you get rid of those roaches!

SPIDERS & HOW MOSQUITOES BREED!

74. ONE NIGHT WE HAD ONE GREAT BIG BLACK SPIDER ABOUT THIS BIG AROUND CARRYING HER EGG BAG UNDERNEATH, sitting on the counter of our bathroom beside the washbowl. Thank God we saw it & caught it in time! I don't think I ever prayed any harder than when I took aim with that fly swatter that I would get that gal‚ & with the same swat hopefully get most of her little babies—little tiny babies that were so small you could hardly even see them! When I swatted her‚ they came out by the hundreds! Well, at least spiders catch gnats & sandflies & hopefully a few flies & mosquitoes if we have them.

75. BUT WE WON'T HAVE BAD FLIES OR MOSQUITOES IF WE KEEP CONTROL OF THE SITUATION and try to make sure they don't have a place to breed, and that means anything outside that contains water that isn't changed. I wrote a notebook on this once, illustrated, about the Anopheles mosquito when I was in high school in Miami and studied up on how the mosquitoes breed. If you've ever seen mosquitoes sitting around on a tub of water, just on the surface, she was laying her eggs in the water, eggs that are so small you can't even see them! But within two weeks they have developed into a larvae that looks a little bit like a seahorse kicking its tail and swimming all over the place! And it only takes about one more week, as I recall, until the mosquito pulls itself out of that little larvae into a full-grown adult winged mosquito with a proboscis longer than yours‚ Son! Well, we're Jews and that's our trademark! From the looks of some of the rest of you guys, you've got'm too!—Ha!

76. MOSQUITOES CARRY DISEASES TOO‚ THINGS LIKE YELLOW FEVER & DENGUE FEVER & SMALLPOX & SEVERAL DEADLY DISEASES, SO DON'T LET THEM BITE YOU EITHER IF YOU CAN HELP IT! Thank God, none of them that have bit us have killed anybody yet. I think I got pretty sick once from one biting me. I don't know what it was, it felt kind of like dengue fever. In the States they used to call it "broken bone" fever because you ache so bad you feel like your bones are going to break‚ & you have a high fever, it's really bad. So mosquitoes are dangerous too.

77. DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ANY LITTLE BIT OF WATER COLLECTING IN ANY KIND OF A VESSEL, CAT DISHES, ANYTHING OUTSIDE! It not only breeds germs, but it breeds mosquitoes. And don't leave any garbage around that is not wrapped or covered or sacked or whatever, so that the flies can get to it. Because they will lay their eggs in the garbage. And they breed so fast, they may get out of there before you get that garbage collected!

MORE SPRAYING & PRAYING!

78. FIRST THING TOMORROW MORNING WHEN YOU SPRAY OUR BATHROOM, CLEAN THE CUPBOARD OUT UNDERNEATH THE SINK COMPLETELY, EVERYTHING OUT OF THERE! Don't even leave toilet paper rolls‚ even if they're in bags, because people have to handle those bags, & the next thing some kid'll do is handle it & stick their finger in their mouth or eye or something & get sick from the poison! Don't leave anything in there that people are going to touch, & spray under those cupboards thoroughly until we get rid of that roach or those roaches that may be under there! Let's hope the roach we killed last night was the mama roach & not the daddy roach, till we get rid of those roaches in our room.

79. AND DON'T EVER LET ME HEAR AGAIN THAT YOU EVER LET A WHOLE MONTH GO BY WITHOUT SPRAYING! I mean it! And you boys be awful careful about spraying too—don't inhale that stuff, it can make you sick! You ought to wear those nose masks, but still don't breathe it. Some of that can get through, so watch out! But I want to see that spraying get done. Well, I don't want to see it if I can help it, because I don't want to be around when you're spraying! God bless you! You're young & strong & a lot of things that won't bother you could bother old folks & young children. They're always talking about being careful about certain things, whether it's doses of medicine or sprays or whatever. It might not hurt you too much, but it could bother children & older people, so watch out.

80. YOU CAN THANK MAMA & THAT ROACH FOR THIS LITTLE LECTURE YOU GOT TONIGHT, & also the fact that John finally reported to me that you guys were having roaches in the kitchen & elsewhere too, & I don't ever want to hear of that again! I want you to get rid of those roaches! Don't stop until we have absolutely exterminated them & decontaminated this place! Amen?

81. SORRY I HAD TO COME WITH BAD NEWS, BUT THAT'S USUALLY ABOUT THE ONLY THING THAT GETS ME IN HERE IS BAD NEWS that's serious enough to be an important emergency enough for me to come & give you a little lecture about it! Otherwise, I've got so many lectures stored up already‚ no matter what happens to me‚ Mama will have enough to keep going until the Lord comes! I'm working on them as fast as I can—I think we got out about five GNs this month.

82. SPRAY THAT KITCHEN FIRST, AS SOON AS THE BREAKFAST DISHES ARE DONE, IS THAT CLEAR? Start carrying out all the dishes & everything that's in there that might get contaminated with that deadly pyrethrine! They warn you plenty on the can with a skull & crossbones to tell you it's poison! Don't leave anything in there that you want to eat or eat off of or eat with that might get sprayed, is that clear? Spray the shelves, & of course the dishes will be stacked on the shelves afterwards‚ but I don't know anybody here that eats off the bottom of your dish, with your dish upside-down! So I don't think it will be dangerous. Leave the kitchen closed up for an hour or two at least, & then open up.

83. ANYONE ON COOKING—DON'T YOU GO BACK IN THAT KITCHEN UNTIL THAT THING IS AIRED OUT THOROUGHLY FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER HOUR, with all the windows & doors open, everything‚ & get all the bad air out. You'll still smell the spray when you go back in because it will be under the sink & on the shelves & whatnot, but don't touch it with your fingers & then stick them in your mouth.

KEEP FINGERS OUT OF MOUTH, EARS & EYES! KILL THAT FLY!

84. SOME PEOPLE HAVE A VERY BAD HABIT OF STICKING THEIR FINGERS IN THEIR MOUTH! An adult here the other day was so sick that they took her to the hospital to find out what was wrong, yet she was sitting in that dirty hospital with her fingers in her mouth! I guess it's a nervous habit she has, biting her fingernails or whatever she was doing. My Lord, folks, don't stick your fingers in your mouth or your eyes or your ears unless you just washed them with soap & water! Is that clear?

85. AND IF A FLY CRAWLS ON YOU ANYWHERE, I'D GO WASH IT IMMEDIATELY IF I WERE YOU! And if you see a fly light on your cup—& they always light right where you've been drinking because that's where the nice juicy stuff is—don't drink out of that part of the mouth of the cup again! Don't just say, "Well, I wiped it off with my napkin." Drink out of the other side. And if you see a fly lighting on your food, Beloved‚ just take a spoon & dish out that particular part of the food & throw it in the garbage‚ because they have sticky legs that carry all kinds of germs, & that's how they spread'm!

86. FLIES ARE ONE OF THE FILTHIEST CREATURES OUTSIDE OF ROACHES! Maybe you didn't know roaches were so bad, but now you know, & flies too! Don't let flies crawl on you or on your food or around on the kitchen shelves & dishes or anything like that, you get rid of them! Boy, I'll tell you, when we find a fly in our room it's a major emergency & we don't stop until we've started wielding fly swatters & chasing that thing all over the place until we kill him!

87. I'VE NOTICED PEOPLE IN SOME COUNTRIES THAT WILL BE SITTING THERE TALKING OR SOMETHING WITH A FLY CRAWLING RIGHT AROUND THEIR MOUTH! I guess they're so used to it, it doesn't even worry them or bother them! A fly lights on them & crawls right across their face or right around their mouth. My Lord, that fly wouldn't have even come near me but I would've started swatting at him!—Mosquitoes too, they can be deadly, flies can be deadly, roaches can be deadly! Thank God for cats, & some frogs, because they eat bugs!

88. WE'VE SEEN FROGS SIT OUT IN OUR BACKYARD AT ONE OF OUR OLD PLACES‚ & there'd be a roach crawling across the pavement out there, & you know the way frogs catch things, they have a huge long tongue that goes way out about arm's length. We'd see that frog sitting there eyeing that roach, & if he got a little too close, zap! But their tongue is so fast, all you see is the frog opening his mouth and the roach disappears! They're so fast! So thank God, I don't kill the frogs! I figure the cats will keep down the frog population anyhow. Cats are a blessing to get rid of a lot of these pests.

SCORPIONS, SPIDERS & CENTIPEDES!

89. I STARTED TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE WOMAN IN MIAMI‚ ARIZONA WHERE WE HELD A MEETING. She lived alone, a poor widow lady with about a dozen cats in the house. You've heard about those old widow ladies that live with oodles of cats in the house?—Well, they have a good reason! She showed us a pint jar full of scorpions that her cats had caught!—Scorpions! And boy, Arizona was loaded with them!

90. THEY HAD TARANTULAS TOO, YOU KNOW, THESE BIG HAIRY SPIDERS! We've seen them in Texas this big around, as big as a plate, right, Mama?—With knees this high, crawling slowly across the ground at night towards the women's restroom, & Mama never would go back in that restroom again! She insisted on using the camper toilet rather than going to that restroom again, & we cleared out of there I think the next day!

91. WELL‚ I'LL NEVER FORGET THE ONE THAT STARTED CRAWLING ACROSS THE STAGE WHERE WE WERE HOLDING A MEETING IN THIS LITTLE TINY CHURCH. There was this cowboy singer sitting there like this with his hat beside him on a table or a piano or something. He was sitting there singing like this & that little bit of motion over there caught his eye. There was a tarantula about that big, just a baby, crawling across the floor! And without missing a beat or a word, he just grabbed his hat & dropped it over the tarantula like that, so that he didn't have to kill it right at that moment at least. Thank God he remembered it was under there when he picked his hat up! When he was through with his song he got a newspaper or something & he went over & carefully picked his hat up & went "bang", like that, & killed him right on the spot. Well‚ they say they won't really bother you unless you bother them, but I never waited to find out!—When I saw'm, I killed'm!

92. I'LL TELL YOU, THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES IS ALMOST AS BAD AS AUSTRALIA FOR ALL KINDS OF DEADLY VARMINTS! Every time we went in the outhouses in TSC, before you sat down on that seat you were instructed to take the lid & bang it hard several times to scare away all the black widow spiders that had webs & nests underneath the seat of the toilet! And when we were cleaning up & building there one day‚ digging around someplace, you've heard of centipedes, but I don't know if you ever saw a real centipede! This baby that ran out was a foot long, this size, with legs about that long, & every leg a stinger, so that if he gets on you & gets scared, he can dig all hundred of them into you like that‚ & you can be thankful you live through it!

ROACH BUMS! FINAL WARNING TO SPRAY!

93. THANK GOD WE HAVEN'T HAD MANY PESTS IN THE PLACES WE HAVE LIVED BECAUSE WE HAVE MADE SURE OUR CLEAN-UP CREW GOES IN & SPENDS ONE SOLID WEEK SPRAYING & RAT-CATCHING! One place we lived, it was so dirty that the rats had even built a nest in the kitchen oven!—Rich people who were living like bums! Well, we don't want to have those bums in our kitchen, these roach bums! They're bumming it, because they don't like to live in their own houses, they like to live in your house‚ they like to steal your food & contaminate your place with all their germs! They are bums bumming it off of you‚ & can give you all kinds of diseases that they've already got!

94. SO DON'T YOU EVER DARE LET THIS SPRAYING GET AWAY FROM YOU AGAIN! I don't ever want to hear that you have stopped spraying, not even for a month! You may have a pretty good excuse for not spraying our room, because I'm very careful about avoiding those sprays & I may not have given you a chance to spray sometimes.—But don't give up! Keep at me! Keep annoying me! Keep reminding me we've got to spray! You can spray our bathroom when Mama & I are out of the room. You don't have to go for a month without spraying just because we're there. We go & get our get-out for about an hour every day, & you can spray at least an hour! So don't give me any more excuses for not spraying!—Whether it's cats or birds or me!—Or you'll hear about it!

95. NOW THAT'S YOUR LAST WARNING! If you boys don't keep up with that spraying, we may need to get some who know how to spray & will spray‚ as well as pray! But all the praying you're going to do isn't going to do you any good if you don't do your part & do it. Give the Lord a little cooperation!

96. AS THEY SAY, "PRAY AS THOUGH EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON PRAYER, & WORK LIKE EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON WORK!" I tried just to depend on prayer about my teeth for several weeks, in fact for months, because I didn't want to go to the dentist! They usually keep me in the chair 2 or 3 hours! It's no wonder, as old as I am & neglected my teeth as long as I have sometimes‚ they've got a lot of work to do! One of those dentists opened my mouth & looked inside & I think all he could see was Dollar signs, how much money he was going to make off of me!

97. I CAN GET PRETTY SERIOUS WHEN PEOPLE NEGLECT THEIR DUTY! I appreciate your concern for the birds & the cats, but have a little concern for us, will you, & get out there & start spraying like mad tomorrow!

98. WELL, YOU CAN HAVE THE SATISFACTION OF KNOWING THIS, THAT AT LEAST YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES THAT ARE GOING TO HEAR THIS MESSAGE! Probably our Family Worldwide needs it! I've preached on mosquitoes & flies before‚ but I think this is the biggest sermon I ever preached on roaches & how to get rid of them! So do it!—And don't let it happen again! I don't want to see another roach around here! And you can do it! You've done it other places we've been & if you keep at it you can get the whole house sprayed till we don't have any more, period!

99. WELL, GOD BLESS YOU & THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE, BUT IF YOU EVER NEGLECT THAT JOB AGAIN‚ BOYS, I AM NOT GOING TO BE PATIENT! If I have to get out there & do it myself, I'm going to save this Family!

100. SORRY, BUT SEE, A STITCH IN TIME SAVES TIME! If these boys had sprayed like they were supposed to, it wouldn't be causing us all this work now where you've got to empty kitchen & bathrooms & everything in order to spray!

CLOSING PRAYER!

101. HALLELUJAH! TYL! THANK YOU FOR THIS GOOD TIME TOGETHER & A LITTLE FELLOWSHIP IN SPITE OF THE CAUSE, LORD, & help these boys now to make up for it & do a good job tomorrow. Help them to find the machinery & the spray & whatever they need & to really go around & make up for lost time by being extremely diligent now & really getting the job done, in Jesus' name! Help us to get rid of these roaches & never let them get started again! And help this class to be one they'll never forget‚ about how dangerous & how bad roaches can be!—Not just a little creature to kick aside when it gets in your way. So Lord, do help us to get rid of them!

102. BLESS & KEEP US ALL SAFELY TONIGHT, THANK YOU FOR HOW YOU HAVE! Thank You for giving us a good place to live & get our work done! Thank You Jesus for all Thy wonderful blessings, Lord‚ this wonderful Family, & most of all for You, Jesus, & Your wonderful Salvation! TYJ! PTL! Hallelujah! Now give us a wonderful night's sleep, Lord, so we'll have a wonderful day tomorrow, in Jesus' name we ask for Thy glory. As we pray together the prayer You taught us to pray! (Prays the Lord's Prayer.) Amen!

103. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR THE LITTLE PRAYER THE CHILDREN & WE PRAY QUITE FREQUENTLY THE NIGHTS WE MEET FOR PRAYER? How about us saying it for them tonight? (Children: Which one?) All three! Okay? Think you can remember them? See, I'm getting out of having another prayer session later with the children, because we start praying in bed & having story after story & pretty soon it's 12 midnight! So if you know these little prayers, you're welcome to join in. We sort of revamped our dinner prayer, & here's how we pray it. It's such a good prayer & covers so much territory, we like it! In fact‚ my Daddy's the one who made it up once upon a time & I've prayed that ever since I was a little kid, & it covers everything. We're not heard for our much speaking, but would you like to hear our little prayer?—Just three prayers & we're done! Think of that! Hallelujah! As we thank Him together:

"Thank You Jesus for this day

And for our Home so fair!

You helped us‚ Lord, to do some good

And kept us in Thy care,

And blessed our loved ones everywhere!"

"And thank You Jesus for our beds

And for Thy Angels around our heads.

Help us to have good sleep tonight

And wake us with the morning bright!"

"For now I lay me down to sleep,

I know Thee, Lord‚ my soul will keep!

But if I should die before I wake,

I know Thee, Lord, my soul will take—To Heaven!"

104. —IN JESUS' NAME, AMEN! GBY ALL! ILY! And so you won't keep sitting there & sitting there & tempting me to keep on talking, I'm going to run without even kissing you goodnight! I'll throw you all kisses, less germs that way!—Amen?

—KILL THOSE ROACHES!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family