This post is an ode to the glorious patience of my parents.
On Feb. 20, I had 1,256 larvae crawl off. I counted them. I picked up every single one of them, counting 50 off at a time, placing each group of 50 into the compartment of egg cartons. (I guesstimated 400, HAHAHAHA oh me...)
To be fair, my 400 guess was made in the morning before I had to go to work. I noticed many more larvae crawling up the sides of the bucket. I did not expect to come home to a completely larvae-covered trough. I walked into the room, saw the larvae, began to hysterically giggle and immediately reported my findings. Mom came to check it out. I believe her words were, "Oh my God, Aubrey Lynn."
In the interest of note-taking and chart-compilation, they needed to be counted.
I sat on the bathroom floor and started the count. Mom came down to see if I needed any help. She sat next to me on the floor and kept the larvae corralled in their compartments post-counting. And she says, "I still can't believe you're doing this." She said it in a shakes-head-in-amazement kind of way.
It's strange. I know this. But I've enjoyed the process. I like watching the larvae undulate, which, again I know is strange and kind of creepy. (But what do I care. *insert sunglass-wearing emoji*) I think the flies are fascinating and beautiful. The larvae don't have eyes. The flies don't have a mouth. The larvae eat. The flies mate. The larvae claim the longest stage of the cycle. The flies only have days on this planet. The life cycle has purpose at every stage. I find that poetic.
As humans, we complicate things. We think too much. We mechanize when we don't have to. We don't observe when we should. We don't always know what's best. Here's this fly that exists for mere days to find a mate, lay eggs then die. The eggs hatch. The larvae eat. They crawl off and transform into flies. I marvel at the simplicity and the intent.
This simplicity breaks with convention. I've pretty much accepted that I'll always do things differently. And there is a lot of understanding and patience required for someone who is like that.
I know there have been some dubious moments. When we were finding the larvae on the kitchen floor or in the bathroom (Dad found one trying to get under the toilet *shrugs*), I think there might have been some low-level consternation. We weren't in danger of waking up to them crawling all over us though. There was also that time when I opened the door from one basement room into another and I swear a larvae fell and hit my hand. I can speculate that it wedged itself between door jam and door and crawled, but I will never know how it really got up there.
So Mom and Dad, thanks for your understanding and thanks for entertaining my ideas, odd as they may be.
On Feb. 20, I had 1,256 larvae crawl off. I counted them. I picked up every single one of them, counting 50 off at a time, placing each group of 50 into the compartment of egg cartons. (I guesstimated 400, HAHAHAHA oh me...)
 |
| 1 compartment = 50 larvae + the 56 in the black container |
To be fair, my 400 guess was made in the morning before I had to go to work. I noticed many more larvae crawling up the sides of the bucket. I did not expect to come home to a completely larvae-covered trough. I walked into the room, saw the larvae, began to hysterically giggle and immediately reported my findings. Mom came to check it out. I believe her words were, "Oh my God, Aubrey Lynn."
In the interest of note-taking and chart-compilation, they needed to be counted.
I sat on the bathroom floor and started the count. Mom came down to see if I needed any help. She sat next to me on the floor and kept the larvae corralled in their compartments post-counting. And she says, "I still can't believe you're doing this." She said it in a shakes-head-in-amazement kind of way.
It's strange. I know this. But I've enjoyed the process. I like watching the larvae undulate, which, again I know is strange and kind of creepy. (But what do I care. *insert sunglass-wearing emoji*) I think the flies are fascinating and beautiful. The larvae don't have eyes. The flies don't have a mouth. The larvae eat. The flies mate. The larvae claim the longest stage of the cycle. The flies only have days on this planet. The life cycle has purpose at every stage. I find that poetic.
As humans, we complicate things. We think too much. We mechanize when we don't have to. We don't observe when we should. We don't always know what's best. Here's this fly that exists for mere days to find a mate, lay eggs then die. The eggs hatch. The larvae eat. They crawl off and transform into flies. I marvel at the simplicity and the intent.
This simplicity breaks with convention. I've pretty much accepted that I'll always do things differently. And there is a lot of understanding and patience required for someone who is like that.
I know there have been some dubious moments. When we were finding the larvae on the kitchen floor or in the bathroom (Dad found one trying to get under the toilet *shrugs*), I think there might have been some low-level consternation. We weren't in danger of waking up to them crawling all over us though. There was also that time when I opened the door from one basement room into another and I swear a larvae fell and hit my hand. I can speculate that it wedged itself between door jam and door and crawled, but I will never know how it really got up there.
So Mom and Dad, thanks for your understanding and thanks for entertaining my ideas, odd as they may be.
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