WATERVILLE — A local pet store is piloting a dramatic Valentine’s Day fundraiser: For a fee, customers can name a cockroach after their ex-partner and feed it to the store’s resident monitor lizard, Brutus.

This is the first year Fish Tails Pet Emporium at 28 College Ave. in Waterville is offering the trending service, which began Tuesday (Valentine’s Day) and is set to end Monday.

Each insect, a 2-inch Madagascan hissing cockroach, costs $6.99. All proceeds will benefit the Humane Society Waterville Area, which “desperately” needs cat food, said Jennifer Alley, who co-owns Fish Tails with her husband, Gene.

Alley said the idea for the fundraiser came to her when she reflected on how “depressing” Valentine’s Day can be for single people.

Gene Alley, co-owner of Fish Tails Pet Emporium at 28 College Ave. in Waterville, holds Brutus, a 30-inch Savannah monitor lizard, on Wednesday. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

“I just wanted to bring in a little humor to the holiday for people who don’t have someone,” she said.

The practice is not unique to the pet store. Many shops and zoos nationwide have similar traditions making light of the holiday. For the past three years at the Humane Society Waterville Area, those who have made a donation could have volunteers write the names of donors’ ex-spouse or companion on bits of paper and throw the scraps into cats’ litter boxes.

As of Wednesday morning, Alley said Brutus had already eaten 21 cockroaches bought by 19 people.

Gene Alley, co-owner of Fish Tails Pet Emporium at 28 College Ave. in Waterville, holds Brutus, a 30-inch Savannah monitor lizard, on Wednesday. Store customers have bought the cockroaches to feed to Brutus in the name of an ex-spouse or companion. Proceeds from the offbeat Valentine’s Day observance are going to the Humane Society Waterville Area. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Customers have found it cathartic, Alley said. One woman in her early 20s, she said, “got super into it” and bought three bugs on behalf of her friends’ ex-boyfriends.

The woman yelled “Yeah, take that!” as Brutus crunched into each cockroach, Alley said.

Brutus is a 30-inch Savannah monitor lizard. Alley said he was surrendered to the store a year ago by a couple who could not care for him, and has become something of a local attraction.

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