Even Bugs Need a Proper Burial

My son loves bugs. No wait, he doesn't love bugs, he LOVES bugs.

While sitting at the restaurant the other night, I noticed he was only using one hand to eat and the other hand was in a fist and he was being very careful not to bump it. Not knowing if I really wanted to know, I finally asked him what was in his fist. Again, I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but knew I had to ask.

He slowly opened his fist, and I mean SLOWLY, as I think he wasn't sure if he was going to be in trouble or not. Inside his closed fist was a moth, a wounded moth; my son brought a wounded moth into a restaurant. Arrrgggg! He told me he found it on the sidewalk and it was hurt and he wanted to help it. I told him he couldn't have it in the restaurant so he offered to go wait outside. He would rather wait outside with his little moth friend than eat dinner. I told him him no, to stay put, and to keep the moth in his hand and we would get our food to go. Our waitress stopped by about this time and luckily she must have been a bug lover too, as she got him a to-go cup and they put the hurt moth inside. Awww.

That night my son put a wet cotton ball in for water and gave it a leaf to eat. I think he checked on it once or twice throughout the night. The moth only lived about one more day, and my son gave it a proper burial. A proper bug burial consists of an empty toilet paper roll for the casket with its name written on it, and wrapped in toilet paper. He digs a little hole and buries it. Someday, someone in the future is going to discover our bug cemetery and will have a good wonder at what the heck was buried.

My son has since moved on to crickets and he buys those little feeder crickets that other people use to feed their pets. He gets very upset when people feed them to other animals, it would be like giving a puppy to a lizard, or at least it is in his eyes. Crickets are only eight cents each so I can't complain about the price. Oh, yes, he does buy them cricket food and water and even cleans out their cage. They are so gross and I can't stand them, but to see my son taking care of them makes me happy and makes him happy thinking he is saving the crickets. I guess there are worse things a boy could do.
(c) 2007 Cindy Breninger All Rights Reserved.