Category: Aging Gracefully

Grandpa Tells a Bug Story

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Grandpa was babysitting while Mom and Dad went Christmas shopping. Carrie went too. Grandpa wouldn’t admit it, but he was probably slightly relieved. Carrie didn’t like being left with babysitters, not even Grandpa.

Jim was working on a report for school. “I have to write all about bugs. It’s kind of interesting.” He flipped through the pages. “They’re everywhere, you know. And they can do good and bad things, just like people.”

“Like what?” Neil closed the book he was reading.

Lynn snorted. “Everyone knows that insects can spread disease and eat crops or they can work as pollinators. Some insects eat other, more harmful insects.”

Grandpa nodded. “Yes, I remember when bugs were invented.”

“Insects weren’t invented.” Lynn rolled her eyes. “That implies that they’re machines, and they’re not.”

“Shhhhh.” Neil scowled. “It’s a grandpa story, and I want to hear the rest of it.”

Jim put down his pencil. “But who could have invented bugs? There are so many types.”

“That’s because they were invented by a committee. No one could agree on anything, and so they tried to do everything. But in their rush to be the first to complete the project, there were a lot of errors.” Grandpa shook his head. “That’s why people talk about errors as bugs sometimes. Some of those insects were so buggy it was terrible.”

“They shouldn’t have released them if they weren’t made right,” Neil said. Jim nodded.

“Yes, that was yet another mistake. The air holes on the holding tanks were much too big. So they all got away. The later committees that formed to fix the mistakes came up with crazier and crazier solutions, until they all finally gave up and let the bugs run wild.” Grandpa wiggled his fingers and waved his arms like bugs running away.

“What were some of the solutions?” Jim asked.

“Mosquitoes are really susceptible to viruses, you know.” Grandpa frowned. “I think it might be due to an error in their programming. They used to also have a terrible craving for cheese. They would raid cheese stores in giant swarms, carrying off wheels of brie and Camembert and cheddar. They would leave viruses in the cheeses they didn’t take, like feta, which is crumbly and hard to carry away.”

“So what did they do?”

“They left a trap for the mosquitoes. A gigantic pile of spoiled cheese. The mosquitoes all got food poisoning and haven’t eaten a bite of cheese since. Unfortunately, it made them angry. Now they bite people, and anything else that moves. I don’t know if they’ll ever stop being angry. It must be another error in their programming. Mosquitoes are just made of errors.” Grandpa sighed an shook his head sadly.

Neil laughed. “Tell us another one.”

“Spiders. They came up with spiders to catch flies. Some of the committee members thought it was working too slowly and developed poisonous spiders. I don’t need to tell you what a mistake that was.” Grandpa paused and the children shook their heads. “Exactly. Some of those spiders are worse than the flies. One of the committee members was particularly impatient and started swallowing the flies herself.”

“Spiders don’t swallow flies,” Lynn said. “They digest them first by…”

“But what happened to the lady that swallowed the flies?” Neil interrupted. “Did she die?”

Grandpa shrugged. “Not right away. She swallowed a spider to catch the flies…”

Jim laughed. “I heard this story. She kept swallowing bigger and bigger things, like cats and dogs and horses.”

Lynn rolled her eyes again. “Ignoring the impossibility of swallowing something as large as a cat, let alone a horse, once they were swallowed, they wouldn’t be alive anymore. She wouldn’t need to swallow anything else. The digestive juices in a person’s stomach…”

“So did she die?” Neil interrupted.

“Of course she did,” Jim said.

“It was a shame. If only she’d been a little less impatient,” Grandpa said sadly. “Insects aren’t all bad, you know. I really admire bees. They pollinate flowers, have a well-organized society, and produce honey. They are tiny little marvels of efficiency.”

“But they sting people.” Neil frowned. “That’s not very nice.”

“Bees only sting people to protect themselves and their homes,” Lynn said.

“Not like wasps. Those are the mean ones. They can just sting people for fun.” Jim turned to Grandpa. “Which came first, wasps or bees?”

Grandpa tapped his chin and thought for a moment. “Ah yes. They were in development at about the same time. The wasp team cut corners to finish first. It’s too bad. If the developers were more careful, maybe the wasps would have turned out better-behaved.”

Lynn sighed loudly. “You are all so silly. You do know that insects have been around for millions of years. Grandpa couldn’t have been around before insects were. That’s impossible.”

Neil shrugged. “No it’s not. Grandpa’s older than dirt. Dirt has to be older than insects, so Grandpa is too.”

Grandpa nodded. “That’s right. Did I ever tell you the story about how dirt was invented?”

Just then, they heard the front door open. Mom and Dad and baby Carrie were home. Grandpa stood up and picked up his jacket. “Oh well, maybe another time.”

Grandpa Discusses the Weather

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Neil sighed as he looked out the window. “It’s still raining.”

Lynn shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Even if it stopped now, we still won’t go to the pumpkin patch. It’ll be all muddy.”

Jim joined them on the couch. “We could wear our boots. I think we could talk mom into it. Carrie would be upset if we don’t go at all.” They all shivered. Their baby sister was scary when angry.

Neil sat up. “We could sing the ‘rain, rain go away’ song.”

Lynn snorted. “That won’t work. There’s no way a song would have any influence on the weather.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Grandpa said. The children jumped.

“Where did you come from?” Jim asked. “You weren’t here a minute ago.”

“Or even a second ago,” Neil added.

“Technically, it’s been several seconds at this point,” Lynn said.

Grandpa smiled. “Your mom invited me to come to the pumpkin patch. I think we’ll go after Carrie wakes up.”

“But it’s raining.” Jim pulled at a thread sticking out from a small hole in the knee of his jeans. “Mom won’t let us go if it’s muddy.”

Neil leaned forward. “Do you think it would work if we sang the song?”

“It might even work too well. At least it did once when I was younger, a long time ago. A long, long time ago.” Grandpa sat in the arm chair.

“Yay! A grandpa story!” Neil clapped his hands. Jim sat back with a smile.

Lynn folded her arms with a huff. “There is no way a song had any effect on the weather. It makes no sense.”

“Just listen to the story,” Jim said. Neil nodded.

“Fine.” Lynn leaned back, her arms still folded.

“Now, where was I? Ah yes. It was raining, and all the children wanted to go outside. They’d just invented ice, you know, and we all wanted to see how long it would take for it to melt in the sun. I thought it would just get really warm all at once and explode, but it later turned out I was wrong. It’s too bad. That would have been exciting.”

“Not so great for drinking lemonade outside on a hot day,” Jim pointed out.

“Well, maybe if the explosions were just little explosions,” Neil said.

Lynn waved her arms around, looking exasperated. “No one invented ice. It’s a chemical property of water. If there was water, there was ice. If there wasn’t water, there wouldn’t have been any people.”

“Maybe they’d just invented ice cube trays?” Jim said. “Anyways, Grandpa was telling a story, and it’s rude to interrupt.”

“But you interrupted first,” Lynn said.

“Shhhhhhhhhh.” Neil looked annoyed.

Grandpa smiled. “Hmmmmm. Let’s see. Ice. That’s right. We wanted to go outside, but it was raining, and our experiment wouldn’t work in the rain. So we all sang the ‘rain, rain go away’ song together, and the combined might of our powerful singing ended the rain. Which was wonderful at first, even though, as I said, the ice didn’t actually explode.” Grandpa sighed.

“But then what happened?” Neil asked.

“Nothing. And that was the problem. The rain didn’t come back. Not for weeks and weeks and months and months. The grass died. The farmers complained. They started rationing water. There was no more ice for experiments, and I wasn’t able to check to see if ice would explode under the full moon. It doesn’t, by the way.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Lynn said. “An explosion is really just a rapid expansion. Moonlight wouldn’t cause that. Not by itself, anyway.”

Neil and Jim looked at Lynn. She frowned and folded her arms. They all looked at Grandpa.

“Yes, well, eventually we had to admit that we’d sung the rhyme. It was immediately banned and poets and musicians worked together to write a new rhyme that would bring back the rain. We all chanted and sang the rhymes and songs until finally, one of them worked. The rain came back.”

Lynn rolled her eyes. “It would have come back without the song. Songs don’t affect the weather. Really, they don’t.”

“And yet, it worked,”Grandpa said. “The rain lasted for a week. Things were flooding. They un-banned the ‘rain, rain go away’ song, but told us never to sing it all together again.”

“So, only one of us should sing the song?” Neil asked.

“I think we could all sing it together,” Grandpa said. “It has a different tune than it used to have, so that makes it a lot less powerful.”

Jim and Neil jumped up. They looked at Lynn until she reluctantly got up. They all sang the song. Once, twice, a third time. The rain stopped.

The children looked at each other. “I still say a song has no real affect on the weather,” Lynn said slowly.

Neil turned to Grandpa. “But what did the tune used to sound like?”

“So, now that it’s not raining, I should check on your mother and see if Carrie’s awake yet.” Grandpa hurried out of the room.

Going Pizza Picking

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Neil looked under the kitchen sink and found a stack of plastic ice cream pails. “I found them,” he called over his shoulder.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Jim demanded. “Get them out and pass them around. The berries are waiting.”

Neil grabbed the buckets and stood up. Lynn and Jim were each holding a hand out expectantly. He handed them each a pail. Another hand reached out from behind them and they both jumped. Grandpa grinned. “Where’s my bucket?” he asked.

Neil handed him a pail. “Are you coming to pick berries, too?”

“Just berries?” Grandpa asked.

Lynn nodded. “That’s what’s in season. Later in the year, maybe we’ll pick corn or peaches or apples or pumpkins.”

Grandpa sighed and shook his head sadly. “It’s not like it was when I was younger.” Read More