Roach Sushi makes Gregor Samsa miserable

RoachSushi 2,
originally uploaded by FeltedChicken.

This item makes me think there might be a market in making revolting tableaux as diet aids. You would put one or more of these around your kitchen and dining areas as appetite suppressants, and since they lack the characteristic odors and scutling noises of the real thing, when company comes around you could just sweep them into a drawer and they would be none the wiser.

As you become habituated to the fake roaches, you could achieve the same effect by coming up with more and more disgusting stimuli. It could be a subscription you would sign up for over six weeks, say, where a package would come to your house with more and more disturbing replicas so that you would not get too used to things.

The flaw in the plan, which I do not yet have a ready way to get around, is that one could simply leave the house to take meals elsewhere. It would generally not do for one to take one of the fake roaches along with oneself to a restaurant where it would be likely to disturb other customers and drive them off.