An Asterisk on Critterdom
I’VE TRIED to be humane, really I have.
I’m even in possession of a bug jar. It came from the Discovery Museum gift shop, and I purloined it from my kid when he was too little to mind.
I use it to airlift horrible creatures back into the wild. In my self-congratulatory humane scenario, I’m keeping them from starving to death indoors.
Essentially, the bug jar is a 2½”-diameter clear plastic cylinder with snap-on magnifier lid.
The numberless grid on the bottom is for the ambitious user who wants to measure life forms I think are way too big to begin with.
In my imagination these little terrors are already larger than life. How much more magnification could I possibly need?
The bug jar lives under the sink in the bathroom, along with a three-by-five rectangle of cardboard that came off a scratch pad.
So the cardboard? It’s because in the heat of battle that clunky snap-on lid is impossible to wrangle on without engaging with the captives in further unpleasantness—I know. For all the anal-retentive/OCD people, yes, without the original lid, this does not match either your picture or what’s on the box.
Instead (Hints from Heloise), I just slide the cardboard under, do this flip-it-all-over-quick maneuver, and head for the great outdoors.
On the way, I humanely imagine that spiders in particular can smell traces of their predecessors on the cardboard and somehow they’ll remember I was on their side and tell all their buddies.
I don’t know how many spiders I’ve rescued over the years, but by now I’m hoping enough of them have spread the word: “Don’t bite her. She’s one of the good ones.” I regard the bug jar as an investment in my future.
How does a typical encounter work, exactly? Say I come upon some spider where it shouldn’t be. My first reflex is to shudder a little and clench my jaw. After a quick mental “Eww” and a zen moment, I forcibly remind myself to be humane. Then I tear for the jar in the bathroom.
“I’ll be back.”
If I make the round trip quick enough, the bug has just finished stubbing out its cigarette and is still standing there, waiting around to snag a ride.
Thanks to me, many a spider has gotten an early perk, a surprise brush with enlightenment at the moment of its violent, unexpected arc into the farthest bushes at ten o’clock at night.
__________
A LONG TIME AGO, well before my bug-jar days, I saw a mosquito that had just bitten me fly off my arm. I was really mad about that.
It landed on my sliding closet door and I went for it. When I smashed it, it smeared—my own blood across the wood.
There’s probably nothing worse than that, except maybe telling people about it in detail.
Comments