Cockroaches and the nuclear option: a metaphor

Mrs. R's not so secret fantasy about bugs in the house is to nuke them. So I guess she would sympathize with the three Thai restauranteurs in Perth, Australia who decided that if a couple of insecticide bombs were good, then 36 were even better. The owner and two staff set them off after the close of business and were heading out the door when an oven pilot light ignited the pesticide and vehicle vapor.

A massive explosion rocked suburban Duncraig today . . . blowing out the back wall and lifting the roof off the Tamarind restaurant.

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The three men, who had reached the restaurant's front door when the explosion occurred, were hospitalised with burns.

John McMillan, manager of the state fire investigations unit, said the pressure wave from the blast was powerful enough to lift the roof off the building.

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Duncraig fire station officer Kieran Cooper said crews arrived to find the building devastated.

"The back wall's been blown out, the front window's been blown out, the ceilings caved down, there's extra wires hanging down, it's pretty (much) all a mess, probably close to $500,000 damage," Mr Cooper told ABC radio.

Mr Cooper said the force of the blast was felt hundreds of metres away.

"It's only a couple of hundred metres from our fire station and we were sitting in the fire station and actually felt the explosion," he said.

"The whole of the station seemed to shake." (The Mercury News [Australia])

One thing you can be sure of, though. The cockroaches survived.

Maybe this is a metaphor.