Off-Kilter

Open a Roach Motel and Win!: Cockroach bounty hunters are scurrying around Tucson this week, looking for a specially marked insect with a $50,000 price on its head. The fugitive roach is part of a publicity stunt by Arizona Pest Control, which glued bar codes to the backs of 100 cockroaches and released them at various spots around the city. The reward for hauling in one of the bugs--dead or alive--is $100, unless it’s the grand-prize roach, which is worth $50,000.

The insect dragnet is Arizona Pest Control’s third cockroach contest. In previous years, the exterminator company has sponsored competitions for the largest bug, which was dubbed Arnold Roachenegger, and the fastest, which was clocked at 2.1 mph. For this year’s contest, the company recruited a University of Arizona entomologist to release the roaches around the city (he’s also taking a lie detector test to prove he freed them all) and coded the cucarachas with markings visible only under ultraviolet light. Company owner Bruce Tennenbaum figures the odds of anyone actually finding a lucky lotto roach are slim. Tucson is home to tens of millions of the insects.

*

Dysfunctional Politicians Department: We’ll probably skip Wednesday’s snooze fest debate among the leading candidates for governor--unless the following conditions are met:

* The moderator promises to yank hard on Al Checchi’s hair to see if it’s a toupee.

* The would-be governors are examined under ultraviolet light to find out if they are, in fact, Arizona cockroaches.

* The debate is expanded to include a few candidates imported from the presidential race in the Philippines.

The Filipino addition could really boost the ratings. Even without shoe fetish freak Imelda Marcos, who bowed out a few weeks ago, that race is sounding more and more like an episode of the “Jerry Springer Show.” According to Chicago columnist Zay N. Smith, the current front-runner is an ex-actor who sports an Elvis hairdo and remarked, after watching the 1994 Miss Universe Pageant, “If Miss Colombia will have me, I’ll leave my wife or even have her assassinated.” His chief rival is a former police chief whose slogan is, “Freeze, or I’ll shoot.”

*

April Showers Bring May Weirdness: As if cockroach hide-and-seek contests and political slugfests aren’t strange enough, May is also National Salsa Month, National Hamburger Month (which conveniently coincides with National Barbecue Month), National Breathe Easy Month (unless you’re downwind from a national barbecue), National Safe Baby Month, National Better Sleep Month (which won’t be easy with fugitive bar-coded roaches on the loose), National Egg Month, National Digestive Diseases Awareness Month, National Self-Discovery Month (maybe we’ll finally find out why we keep writing about ourselves as “we” even though we’re just one person), National High Blood Pressure Month and National Motorcycle Awareness Month. May also boasts International Tuba Day (which might explain why the Weekly World News just ran a story about bullies who killed a boy by stuffing him into a tuba), National Raisin Week and International Pickle Week.

*

Best Supermarket Tabloid Story: Saddam Hussein has ordered a roundup of “all bottles containing genies,” according to the Weekly World News. He’s worried that a disgruntled Iraqi Aladdin will use one of the supernatural beings to overthrow him.

* Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Contributors: A.J. Flick, Tucson Citizen, Arizona Daily Star, Arizona Republic, Chicago Sun-Times, Olympia Daily World, Premiere Radio, Buzz Report