Advise from Mr. Bradbury

Buggin' Out

I remember waking up suddenly in the middle of the night to the sound of my sister screaming. She is 11 years older than me, almost an adult at the time as I was likely between the ages of 6-8 yrs old. Our bedrooms were next door to each other on the top floor of the house. What on Earth would force her to make such a sound in the middle of the night? Was someone breaking in? Was she being viciously attacked?

Turns out, there was a moth in her room. She can't deal with bugs, especially moths and spiders. She ended up waking (and paying) one of my four brothers to deal with it. After a few minutes the ordeal was over and we could all return to our warm beds.

I don't love bugs, but when push comes to shove, I can deal and depose of them. The worst bugs that I have encountered were both found in the more humid parts of Canada. When we were living in Ottawa in a pretty ghetto (but very affordable) apartment, we had the horrific privilege of returning, after the 2-3 months summering in Alberta, to a shared space. It's one thing to open a dark cupboard to a coach roach, it's another to open the freezer and one falls from above onto the floor.  I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat (I felt the need to rewash dishes, spoons etc before eating anything). Thankfully, we were on our way out of that hellhole and were in the processing of moving to a house rental. It just made the moving process more complicated as we cleaned and bleached everything before packing.

The other creature that horrified me, was the dreaded millipede. In Ontario, the millipedes aren't like they are in Alberta. A rare sighting of one in an Albertan basement, they get as long a maybe the length of a pinky finger and even skinnier than that. In Ontario, they are HUGE! Think of the length of a garter snake.

You can't miss these guys. Thankfully, I only saw 2-3 during our two years at the house we rented in Gatineau. You can't squish them with a Kleenex. I used one of David's boots and repeatedly hit it. I am getting the willies just thinking about it.

My boys love bugs. They love killing them.

Recently we found on Netflix a show called You Vs. The Wild. It features the host of the Man Vs. The Wild show, Bear Grylls. The cute, resourceful and daring Brit that gets dropped off in various types of "the middle of nowhere" (deserts, mountains, caves, what have you) and shows the viewer how to successfully survive 24 hrs. In this, more kid-friendly version, through the technology of SmartTVs the viewer gets to interact with the show, like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, and you get to decide if he should stay in place or keep exploring, make a trap or try fishing, etc. I love the outdoors, hiking and camping so this is a show I can enjoy with the kids. Then comes the kicker. Should he eat some bark/berries or a giant bug? So gross. My kids freaking love it! The grosser, the better, in their eyes.

Cut to, we are at Devonshire Beach at Slave Lake, I decided to set up our "base camp" near some large piles of driftwood so I can search through them for crafting inspiration and the boys can make obstacle-type course and balance on the larger logs. We both win. Unfortunately, ants love to be near old wood too. If you stand or sit too long near these log piles, ants gladly will explore up your chair or legs and on to the rest of your body. No so cool, at least for me. Little Dragon notices all of these insects and of course resorts back to his buddy, Bear Grylls. And what does he do?  Eats one. And then another, and another. I basically had to force him to stop. "If you keep eating the ants, I will NOT give you another snack today!" I whisper yell to him. "But, they are good!' he exclaims. So freaking gross!

Later that evening, when Big Dragon returns from work. I tell him of our adventures of the day, reporting to him the unusual snacking habits of his eldest son. "I used to do that too!" says Big Dragon,"They aren't so bad, they actually taste like lemons." Little Dragon overhears this, "Yeah, they do!" he agrees. Please tell me I am not the crazy one here.