What's for dinner?
It's chicken, your favorite.
All right, sweetie, let's go.
Go to bed, honey.
Can you read me a bedtime story?
I don't want to go to bed.
Mom said we needed--
[SCUTTLING]
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
Lights out.
Aye.
OK, kids, time to get up and eat.
It's time for bed, babe.
Goodnight, Shelby.
[SCREAMING]
Hi, my name is Shelby Counterman.
I am 9 years old, and I collect cockroaches
[SMOOCH]
When I started collecting roaches, I only had five,
and now I have thousands.
I like roaches because when they crawl on my arms,
they tickle me and when I hold them, they make me real happy.
Uh, I could do without them, but she really likes them, so--
I absolutely don't love the cockroaches,
but I can deal with them.
I do have freakout moments every once in a while.
[SHRIEK]
MEG COUNTERMAN: Oh my god, get those!
Get 'em all!
No roaches escaped, Mommy.
But, overall, you know, I've come
to accept Shelby's passions.
SHELBY COUNTERMAN: My favorite thing about roaches
is that they are unique and special.
MORREY COUNTERMAN: My favorite thing about cockroaches
is that someday in the near future
that they will all go away.
I want to teach people about my roaches
because they're not monsters and they
can be really cute and funny.
These are Dubia roaches.
She is pregnant, and right here, you can see her egg casing
in the back of her abdomen.
These are my Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
[HISSING]
Sometimes they're too noisy.
I will hiss at 'em.
[HISSES]
[GOES QUIET]
The exoskeleton is their bones on the outside of their body.
They shed their exoskeleton.
They turn snow white for just a couple of hours,
and then they get their normal color back.
The roaches, they do not bite.
They're not harmful at all except they may be a little
stinky once in a while.
This is a taxidermian beetle.
I use 'em to clean up the dead bugs in my cage
so it doesn't smell so bad.
They're called taxidermian beetles because they
eat the flesh off bones.
NARRATOR: With over a thousand roaches,
sometimes the whole Counterman family must jump in and help.
The thing I like least about the cockroaches
is when we have to clean the tanks out.
It can take a lot of time.
The actual transferring them tank to tank,
it's not exactly pleasant moving 'em
from one location to the other.
There's a million other things I'd rather be doing right now
than sorting out roaches and getting
all this mess taken care of.
Check 'em!
Make sure there's no bugs out.
There is one rule--
do not let the roaches get loose.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7.
This is definitely the grosser thing
that we have to do with them.
19, 20, 21, 22, 23.
But we do try to be supportive.
Shelby doesn't know life without cockroaches.
She's had them for so long.
When Shelby was 18 months old, we took a field trip
to a conservation district.
Shelby saw the cockroaches and absolutely
fell in love with them.
So when I was three years old, I told my mom I wanted bugs.
When Meg tells me that Shelby needs cockroaches, I'm like,
who's the grown-up here?
Why does Shelby need cockroaches?
You're the grown-up.
You should've just told her no.
MEG COUNTERMAN: A good friend of mine
told me that he would give us male cockroaches.
Yeah, so I got voted out 2 to 1.
MEG COUNTERMAN: When Shelby was five,
we were on another field trip.
And Shelby spoke with the folks there and told them
that she had a big problem.
I told him that I didn't have any girls
and always got really jealous because they had babies.
We left on that field trip with female cockroaches.
[CAMERA CLICKS]
And Shelby began breeding them.
At nine, she has thousands, thousands
and thousands of them.
I keep my favorites at the end of the bed because I like them.
Shelby got a terrible cold one time,
and we were trying to isolate what was causing
her coughing all night long.
So I actually took the tank out of Shelby's room.
And then the next morning, I was like, Mom,
I had nightmares.
She was complaining about having bad dreams,
and she did until I put the tank back a couple of weeks later.
She put it back in, and I was like, Mom,
my nightmare are gone.
And ever since then, I have not had any nightmares.
MEG COUNTERMAN: She views the cockroaches as almost
a security blanket in her room.
And that's how my roaches are my dreamcatchers.
This is my gravestone for my favorite roach.
Her name was Blackie, and I named her Blackie because she
was completely black.
She died about a year ago.
And on the bottom, I wrote, she was nice, and I miss her a lot.
So sometimes I come out here and just look at her gravestone.
Shelby enjoys doing a variety of different activities
with her cockroaches.
We're going to make this size.
We have a few examples.
Sometimes my friends will come over and play with dolls,
and sometimes they'll come over and play with roaches.
What are you making, Jordan?
I'm trying to make, like, a small shirt,
but it's coming out like a really big one.
Today we are making costumes for my roaches,
and I invited some friends over to help me.
Here you go.
Well, in my opinion, it's perfectly fine
to have cockroaches.
At first, kind of creepy.
[LAUGHS]
I think having a cockroach for a pet is pretty weird.
Welcome to the cockroach fashion show,
our first viewer will be [INAUDIBLE] made by Emily!
[APPLAUSE]
This is Superman done by Jordan!
He thinks he's superhero right now.
[APPLAUSE]
A real pretty butterfly done by Shelby Counterman!
[APPLAUSE]
I think the fashion show went pretty good--
Ooh!
--besides all the cockroaches trying to run away.
A lizard done by Jordan!
[APPLAUSE]
SHELBY COUNTERMAN: I wanted all my friends
to know that cockroaches can be funny, and they're not scary.
A chicken done by Andrea.
[APPLAUSE]
ANDREA BURGOON: I loved having a fashion show with roaches--
[APPLAUSE]
Whoo!
--even if it was creepy.
That was basket five.
NARRATOR: But cockroach couture isn't the only way Shelby
spreads the roach gospel.
Shelby loves the Children's Museum.
And so it was a huge, exciting moment
when they wanted her to come speak about the cockroaches
and educate kids about the value of the cockroaches.
At the Children's Museum, my goal
is to teach them about roaches by doing a roach circus.
What we've put together is we have a Ferris wheel,
a cannon, and a tightrope.
MORREY COUNTERMAN: What if we go like this?
Ooh, yeah!
The cannon, we used stickers to decorate it.
(QUIETLY) You're still here.
We're going to have a little air-powered rocket launcher
to launch our projectile, which today happens to be
one of her beloved roaches.
All right.
We are gonna make the cannon shoot through this hoop of fire
and hit the net.
(TOGETHER) 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
(SINGING) Ahh!
Ugh!
MORREY COUNTERMAN: Oh!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shelby's
Amazing Cockroach Show!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
[WHOOSH]
All right, sweetie, let's go.
NARRATOR: Many nine-year-old girls play with dolls--
not Shelby Counterman.
She prefers playing with her collection
of Madagascar hissing and Dubia cockroaches, several thousand
of them.
Here's the Ferris wheel.
MEG COUNTERMAN: OK, no roaches in it, right?
No, we checked.
How could you forget your beloved roaches?
Ready? Clear?
SHELBY COUNTERMAN: Clear.
NARRATOR: Today, Shelby's been invited
to show off her little friends at the local children's museum.
SHELBY COUNTERMAN: We're going to do a roach circus
in a few minutes.
WOMAN: You're doing a what?
A circus.
WOMAN: Oh, OK.
DANI BOORMAN: Her family comes to the museum very often.
So when we heard about Shelby and her cockroaches,
we thought it was a great idea for her
to come here and share with everybody what she does,
her special talent.
These are cockroaches.
They are my pets.
BOY: Do they hurt you?
No.
So which ones are the hissers?
[HISSING]
That's a Madagascar.
Oh, hello.
OK.
Shelby came to my classroom when
she was about three years old, and the thing
that most interested her were the roaches.
She was drawn to those immediately,
and they captivated her pretty much from the beginning.
They can live up to two to five years.
Shelby's interest in the roaches has continued to grow,
and her mother continually reminds
me that I'm the one that started her creativity
in these insects.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shelby's
Amazing Cockroach Show!
This is a Madagascar hissing cockroach.
BOY: One more.
One more.
The Madagascar hissing cockroaches,
they hiss either if they're scared, angry,
trying to be a leader.
GIRL: Sss.
It's great to see someone you taught take in some
of what I taught her, learn more, and is
now passing it on to others.
And next we have our tightrope walkers.
I'm doing Madagascar because its feet can get a better grip.
[DRUM ROLL]
[HORN FLOURISH]
We are now going to use the cannon
to launch a roach through the hoop of fire
and onto our target.
Let's do a countdown from--
ALL: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[WHOOSH]
[WHISTLING]
[THUD]
[CHEERING]
BOY: Yeah, that was awesome!
And she is still alive.
A lot of people do a lot of different things with insects.
She shot him out of the cannon, and
the female survived just fine.
Anyone want to touch him?
I thought Shelby's circus was very inspiring to other kids
to start collections of stuff and not
to be afraid because I think she's
very brave to collect those.
'Cause most kids wouldn't do that.
This is the female.
Our circus went really good, and the roaches performed
pretty good, I thought.
I thought I told people a lot of good information.
I definitely believe that Shelby is empowered
through her collection of cockroaches,
and she helps people get over the cliche
that a little girl should be afraid of bugs.
That was the first time that I got to touch a cockroach,
and it was fun.
MORREY COUNTERMAN: It's probably a life learning lesson for her.
People think a bug's a bug, but it's more than that to her.
I mean, bugs can teach us things.
Bugs are important in the world.
They have their place in the world, just like we do.
For my next circus, I'm thinking
about adding a strong roach contest and maybe a roach
juggling and one riding a bike
Shelby's talked a lot about being an entomologist
when she grows up.
I think I could definitely see that career path for her.
[SMOOCH]