When I’M a Parent, I’ll NEVER *insert delusion here*

When I was a kid we had these narsty things on our bushes called “bag worms.” I know, right? The very name sort of makes your stomach roll. We lived in Maryland and there was actual rain there. Rain. You know, water that falls from clouds in the sky? We Rocky Mountain Westers are not that familiar with the substance these days. Y’all local people go check out a David Attenborough vid from the library. You’ll see it there. It’s how umbrellas were invented.

Anyhoo, rain meant lots of plant life, which brought with it lots of insects and icky crawlies. Bag worms were disgusting creatures that wove bags around themselves (ew) and hung off our coniferous trees and bushes by the gross. And I mean gross. My dad was militant about not having them there. Me? It was the era of righting wrongs and a new dawn of acceptance. Why persecute the sweet little things?

The long and short of it was that it became a warm-weather battle ritual for my dad to nag us out of the cool house into the sweaty yard with flowery garden gloves on our hands to snip billions of those suckers off the bushes. I spent each de-bag-worming excursion in a constant state of stomach upheaval. The emotional scar is a mile wide. And I vowed never to subject my own children to such horrors.

Which is why we got them up at the crack o’ dawn to weed the yard this morning. Amid the wolf spiders and snails and earwigs and potato bugs that abound in these parts. Turns out that weeds and pretty-plant predators are not desirable to have in one’s garden. And children stuffed to the earlobes with character are. 

Oh, I see. So I have the bag worms to thank for the astonishing mom I am today. And my own kidlets will have wasps and  freaky Attack-of-the-Giant-Desert-Arachnids to thank for who they turn out to be. Which means that whole “I’ll never make my kids [fill-in-the-blank]” -thing that children gnash out at us means we are  successful parents. And there’s a flat guarantee that someday you will see your grandkids doing [fill in the blank]. ‘Cuz your obstreperous children will make them. 

Ah the cycle of life. I’m gonna go sit in a chair beneath my flowering pear trees and pat myself on the back in weedless buggy peace now. Whilst sipping a cuppa 1970’s LoudMouth Lime KoolAid. Here’s to you, Dad.