Please Pass the “Off”

There are some days that I worry I won’t have anything “funny” to post about, then I open my eyes, look around, and remember where I live.

Things have been relatively normal quiet around here, and aside from the kids being stir crazy and stuck inside most of the day because of the heat, humidity, and thunderstorms, not much mayhem has been happening.  Monday began no differently, and by about 4pm I was about to shoot myself in the foot if I had to watch “Up” or “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” one more time. Thankfully, as we ate our dinner, clouds began to roll in, providing some relief from the persistent summer sun. After gobbling down our dinner, which really isn’t that different from any other night, we checked the radar and headed outside with the kids.   With any luck at all, playing outside would help get the kids tired and ready for bed. Jake and Cecilia played in the sandbox, and Joey followed me around my vegetable garden. The garden, now nearly impassable down the center, is over-flowing with plant (and some animal) life.  Joey gently collected beetles, spiders, lady bugs, some sort of buzzy insects, caterpillars and about a dozen fire flies (aka lightning bugs) by the time it was dark and time to head inside.

Joey, who meticulously captures each bug in a small container, and then transports it into a larger one that has the “houses” (grasses, leaves, and sticks), threw a royal fit about releasing his “friends.”  Normally, I do not give in to this type of annoying behavior, but this night I was exhausted both mentally and physically. Joey agreed to leave his jar by the back door, and he peacefully went inside for a bath and bed. Seemed liked a win-win to me.

By the time I heard something go “bump’ in the night, I had forgotten about the bugs in the jar by the back door. At first, I didn’t open my eyes, but rather I just laid there, hoping it was just a book or toy falling off one of the kid’s beds. “Bump, Bump, Shuffle..” Shit, one of the kids was awake and my husband was either pretending to be asleep or had fallen into a grizzly-like hibernation.  Still mostly asleep myself, I rolled over, facing my open (always) bedroom door and half opened my eyes to see if there was a child out in the hallway. The hallway was still pitch black, a pretty good indicator that no one was roaming about, but my eyes caught a strange yellowish flash. I mumbled a few choice curse words, opened my eyes, and sat half up in bed, trying to focus on the funny yellow light. “Buzzzzzz!” and then something clicks hard against the baby’s dimly lit video monitor. WTF? I turn on my bedside lamp, my husband  now curses at me, and I see a beetle buzzing around the screen of the monitor.  Next I hear Joey starting to cry from inside his room.  In retrospect, this may have been a strategic maneuver on his part after hearing his father and I stirring in our room.

As I open Joey’s door, I see him holding a seemingly empty bug sanctuary, and I observe insects buzzing about his room, several flying around his lamp. Joey, now in full blown tears, fearing a midnight scolding, is powerless to recapture his many bugs without his smaller container. His cries become more panicked as he sees my husband stumble into the room muttering a stream of curses under his breath.  At this moment, only the fear of waking a sleeping one and three year old, save Joey from punishment.  Then for the next hour my husband and I gingerly caught bugs, placing them back into the jar, and I wondered who I was more angry at, me or Joey.

Now I know, we did not capture all the bugs. Specifically, I’m concerned that we are missing at least two caterpillars, but at 2am it’s hard to give a shit about much of anything, least of all bugs. At that time I just wonder how long it will be until I start finding moths in the house.

So as we climbed back into bed, it being nearly 3am now, we saw a lightning bug flash his ass (almost mockingly I think) in the hallway, my husband turned to me and asked if I could please pass the “Off.”  Secretly, we both know it’s funny, but I grouchily blame his genetics and roll over to get a solid three more hours of sleep.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010