"Dad! Dad, c'mere! You gotta see this!"
Sweating my arse off ten feet off the ground, I really didn't think it merited a dangerous trip down the ladder.
But she was insistent. "Seriously, c'mere!"
"What is it?"
"It's the biggest caterpillar I've ever seen!" I could see it from the ladder; neon green, beautiful, and huge indeed.
"Wow," I said.
"Hang on, I'm gonna get my phone and take a picture!" She runs in the house, comes back out, and her bratty beagle rolled over on the caterpillar. "Nooooo," shouted my daughter. Yep. "Fuzzy Lumpkins (as he became known)" had joined me in the afterlife.
My daughter was distraught. "Stupid, beer-stealing, murderous dog," she groused. "These dogs have no concept of space or their surroundings, just destroy everything. Poor caterpillar."
"Should we bury it?" I asked, not really wanting to.
"We have to do something with it. We can't leave Fuzzy to be eaten by my dumb dogs."
Baron, the murderous beagle, licked his chops in anticipation.
So, during the inglorious funeral (Fuzzy was buried in a plastic bag and put in the trash in which I had to take care of because my daughter played this card: "You do it. You're the guy." Every other time, of course, she believes women to be superior to men.), I shared my own childhood caterpillar trauma.
"You know, when I was a kid, I saw a caterpillar in my family's living room. Squicked out--but not wanting to harm it--I got a napkin and tried to pick him up to put him outside. But I accidentally squished him. I had a good cry over the unfairness of it all."
Which reminded me of what a Methodist preacher said in my parents church one time. He made fun of Richard Gere for putting a bug outside and mocked his Buddhist beliefs. Furthermore, he went on to preach, "Everyone knows bugs don't have souls."
Well. No, everyone doesn't know that bugs don't have souls. I'm not saying bugs do or don't have souls...just no one truly knows. Now, I hear the devout among you saying, "But, Stuart, that's what faith is all about." And that's fine. I think believing in something is good for people. Yet, the definition of "faith" is "a strong belief in God based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof." So, there it is. No...one...knows...if...bugs...have...souls.
So, take that, Mr. High and Mighty Methodist Preacher man who looked like Boris Karloff and scared the crap outta me with all his hell and brimstone talk. Kinda the reason I fell out of love with organized religion. That and the hypocrisy of one religion talking smack about another one. C'mon, do you think Jesus would approve of hating on Buddhists? Or any religion for that matter?
So, yes, we'd like to think Fuzzy Lumpkins is now in a better place, with his little soul freed from the shackles of my daughter's hideously hot back yard. Keep this in mind this the next time you stomp out a bug (flies are exempt, though, because when my time comes up, I could be in trouble for being a fly serial killer).
Speaking of strange and creepy bugs, there's more than a few of them lurking with the pages of my horror collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, available just one lil click away! You've been warned.
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