Among what may be considered my more fruitless habits is my attempt at saving the lives of insects that are somehow trapped in my human contrivances. Early in the mornings, when dew collects on my hot tub cover, I often find both moths and water boatmen literally stuck in the watery layer where they have landed. I do my best to dab up the hapless critters and flick them off along their way again. And while both you and I might have an argument against grasshoppers, I regularly collect those and beetles from the floor of my garage and pitch them back into the sunny grass.
Yesterday,
I scooped up a small hopper and trotted it outside while enclosed (and
squirming) in my hand. Weirdly enough, the grasshopper refused to jump off my
hand when I opened it outside. “You’re free to go eat a hole in the leaf of one
of Desiree’s flowers,” I told the hopper.
The
hopper took a few steps but remained on my hand. I next lowered my hand beside
the brick ledge to encourage the critter to hop off. No luck with that. Apparently,
the grasshopper thought I was his buddy. I was actually able to retrieve my
smartphone for a "buddy picture" before forcefully tossing the hopper into the
wild.
My
Buddy
—Mitchell Hegman
No comments:
Post a Comment