Every year it’s the same story. The weather warms up and the kids and the insects take over the backyard. The insects want to feast on the tender green leaves. They want to burrow into our landscaping, eat bark, and drink the fresh rain water. They want to have a nice insect life.
However The Insect Club (pictured above) doesn’t believe in a bug’s freedom. No free roaming for slugs, lizards, grubs, roly polies, snails, or beetles. In the world of The Insect Club (read: insect murderers), bugs should have only one fate: recycled pickle jars with holes in the lid. And for bugs, the Insect Club’s jars are the end of the road.
Upon entering one of these jars, the insect may believe he’s hit the lottery. He’ll look around and notice the fresh grass and cool water. “Hey! It’s like my own habitat!” he’ll think. But then the four-year-old will get ahold of the squirt bottle and start saturating the walls of his house. And that, this little bug will know that this jar is not the lottery he wanted to win.
Water torture is only one kind of murdering this group is capable of. They’ve also been known to suffocate a roly poly home with 300% more grass than the spaghetti jar can hold. In an ironic twist of fate, the tiny bug is so crowded, he can’t even roll into a ball to avoid the the crushing grass. The Insect Murderers will kill the bug softly with their song of promising to take care of it forever. Or until they forget to give it water–which is tomorrow.
Sometimes they forget the air holes. Other times they inadvertently decapitated the bug with too much handling. Once a roly poly died of fear. It’s the only explanation. One minute he was crawling and rolling around his jar, and the next he was just a bug skeleton.
I wish it was a better fate for these innocent bugs. They never asked to be part of the Insect Club, to be studied, loved, handled, and forgotten. The only salvation for the backyard insects is that soon it will be warm enough to swim. Soon their captors will move on to other interests, and the bugs will, once again, be free to roam in peace.
