Habitat For Inhumanity

I rescue bugs. My cats find them in the house, and I rescue them. It doesn’t seem like any more trouble to scoop them up and deposit them outside than it is to squash them and dump them in the garbage. There have been people in my house that I’ve wanted to squash and dump in the garbage, but the bugs are not nearly as bothersome. The bugs don’t want to be here any more than I do. It’s filthy in here. My house is decorated like a crime scene. Helter Skelter Feng Shui. Not suitable for man nor bug.

So I rescued a bug today. And I reminisced about a bug-rescuing mission I performed a couple of years ago. I suppose I could reminisce about other things, given the abundance of time on my hands. Things like my marriages and jobs and junk like that. But those would be more accurately categorized as flashbacks. Do you ever hear of Nam vets waking up screaming with reminiscences?

I reminisced about the day a friend stopped by with her three-year-old daughter. The little one had to pee, and making it home was an iffy proposition. I was in my front yard, probably reminiscing, and my lady friend saw the opportunity to avoid a urinary accident. May we use the bathroom? Why, surely.

Mother and daughter headed for the crapper and closed the door behind them.

"Oooooh, it’s dirty in here." The kid said it, but I’m sure it was a unanimous determination. I flush twice a year, when I change my clocks. That’s why the bugs are looking for a way out, too.

Having passed judgment on my domestic skills, the two headed back out to the car. As my breezeway door swung open, a ladybug made its dash for freedom and the child caught sight of it on final approach to the garden outside my door. The ladybug had barely pulled up to the arrival gate, and the kid scooped it up in her hands.

"Can I bring it home, Mommy?"

Mommy apparently thought the kidnap and torture of a bug would be a good learning experience for the wee one, and asked me if I had a jar. As I diligently monitored the situation to prevent the ladybug from being squished by the spastic fingers of the little angel, I offered my own recommendation.

"Rather than encourage the little darling to adopt the ladybug and bring it home to die, given that the ladybug’s attention span far exceeds that of the child, why not encourage the child to observe the ladybug in it’s natural habitat, noting the productivity and meaningfulness of the bug’s life? Then compare and contrast that to the unproductive and meaningless nature of the lives of the adult human beings surrounding her. Consider it a lesson in perspective."

Mommy didn’t get it. "So you’re not going to give us a jar?"

"I’ll give you a jar if you clean my toilet."

Bug stayed, kid left. Dirty toilets save lives.