Waiting for the Grow

I saw Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot when I was in college. That was a perfect college-age activity. Spoiler: if you haven't seen Godot, don't worry, neither did they. It is a LONG wait. Trust me: you don't plan to see it anyway. Because you are a grown up now. Grown ups don't have time for 6 hour plays about philosophical matters.

Grown ups don't discuss philosophy or see lengthy Beckett plays because they do not have time. They are too busy driving fast, sipping coffee and honking their car horns at people who are too busy sipping coffee to drive fast. (Okay, I do drive too fast on occasion, but never drink coffee because it is icky and never honk my horn because it feels rude to me.) Nevertheless, I am a grown up. Busy.

Still, last week I came home from work in a hurry because I knew my bugs were due to arrive. No, that isn't some clever euphemism (and if it is, I wouldn't have the first clue what it means!). I had a small cardboard box waiting for me that had the words "Live Insects: Open Immediately" printed on the side. And I was excited. Who wouldn't be?

My live insects weren't really mine. For his birthday, Jude received a "butterfly garden" which is a lovely mesh habitat for butterflies. Inside the box was a coupon to redeem our live caterpillars. Caterpillars? Live? Okay.

So for a minimal shipping and handling charge (very reasonable, I thought, for $3.00 to ship live critters through the mail) we received our live caterpillars. They came in a small plastic container with holes punched in the lid and lots of food. Our critters didn't move at all the first day and we spied 5 caterpillars (3 of which, we were guaranteed, would become butterflies). Three of these caterpillars moved about, eating their food and ignoring the human hands that would pick up the container, peek in and then gently set them back on the counter in the kitchen where they were living next to the toaster.

The caterpillars lived in their tiny plastic, sealed habitat for about a week. Then, suddenly there were five caterpillars hanging upside down from a thin piece of paper attached to the bottom side of the lid. Oh, goodness. Where did they all come from?

Within two days, there were five little caterpillar homes attached to the roof of their container. Now it was time to move the critters into their new (temporary) home.

Jeff, Jude and I sat on the kitchen floor and carefully opened the tiny container. The directions stated to "pin the paper disc to the lower inside wall of the butterfly habitat." Huh? Pin? Safety pin? Straight pin? Pin and tonic?

I am purportedly a grown up, but I had nary a safety pin in the house so Jeff and I fashioned a pin from a paper clip and helped the critters into their home. I placed the container up on the wall, out of reach of little hands. This was 2 days ago; now we wait.

The butterflies should emerge 5 to 8 days from now where they can be observed and fed, and then released into the wild. It has been an interesting learning experience thus far for Jude, but also for me. I'm not comfortable with house guests and when I was vacuuming up cracker crumbs from the floor, I worried for a moment that the noise might bother the not-yet-butterflies. I can't even begin to imagine how this metamorphosis occurs; I only know the "before" stage right now.

I can't wait to see the "after" stage.

The caterpillars have been very good over all. Well behaved. They are the hairiest house guests I've ever had, but they are also the quietest.

I've never been one to fully embrace nature with open arms, but I am letting it in a bit. But when it comes time to release the butterflies out into nature (which I guess it anywhere outside out house), I'm going to secretly name two of them Vladimir and Estragon. Just because I can.