Creepy Crawly

In my previous stories, I've mentioned the differences in our kids' personalities, and the adjustments we've all had to make.  One of the very amusing adjustments (well, it was amusing to ME) was that Nikki was forced to develop a tolerance for insects.

At a very young age, Noah discovered his love for science, and especially for bugs.  When he was around six years old, he had a little bug cage and a net, and he carried them everywhere.  He became really good at catching things, and even hatched a cocoon.  A few years later, he said he wanted to be an entomologist.

One day, when Nikki and I were still dating, Noah went up to her and raised his bug cage about and inch away from her face and proudly said, "Look what I caught!"  Well, whatever it was, it was big, green, and really gross, and Nikki nearly jumped out of her skin.

The funny part is that up to this point, her kids didn't have much interest in bugs... but now they did!  They wanted to catch bugs, and they were asking for jars, and then bringing the jars (with no lid) into the house. Nikki was officially creeped out!


Eventually, Nikki did adjust to the presence of bugs around the house, once some ground rules were set about not bringing them into the house!  But there were a few more instances that caused her resolve to crack a bit.

Late one summer evening, we were hanging out on the back porch.  It was dark outside, and as usual, the insects were attracted to the light coming from inside the house through the screen door.  These mostly consisted of moths and june bugs.  But today, there was a large bug perched on the window that did not look much like the others.  Nikki saw this and yelled, "what the HELL is that???"

"Why, that's a praying mantis, honey" I replied.  This did not help.  If you've never seen a praying mantis in person, they are the creepiest looking thing on this planet.  They're like half robot, half alien.  If you approach them, their head actually swivels around to look at you.

"Oh, my God, do they LIVE around here???"  She asked.

"Well, they do now... Noah hatched a whole egg sack of them in the back yard!"

"You mean we now have two hundred of these creepy things in our back yard?!?"

"No, not two hundred... at least half of them get eaten by their siblings right after they hatch."  This also did not help.  Nor did it help to explain that they are very beneficial in controlling the population of other insects, but again she adjusted.  In fact, I would say that she has made quite a bit of progress, considering she has allowed Noah to have a pet tarantula.  However, she did warn me that if "that damn thing" escapes, she will move out to a hotel and not return until it's caught or dead.

I don't suppose it will help to point out that tarantulas can live up to fifty years!