The Thevictorian family gathered near the kitchen door in preparation for an outing to feast on a last supper for Genius. Attention was draw to Hick's latest auction purchase, which sat perched upon the kitchen table. No, the picture below is not of our kitchen table. It's the corner of the back porch deck.
Yes. You're right. It's a beautiful, beflowered, bug-catcher. If you look close enough, you may see an actual bug inside. That's not the dirty laundry part. Anyone could buy a beautiful, beflowered, bug-catcher at an auction and bring it home and set it on the kitchen table. But only Hick could expound so uninformedly upon its operating instructions.
HICK: "See, boys? It's a bug catcher. You pour your poison in here, and then you hang it up. When the bugs go in, they can't find their way out. So it catches them, and you don't have bugs."
THE PONY: "Umm...why would bugs go in to get poison?"
GENIUS: "Yeah. And if they eat poison, of course they can't find their way out. Because they've been poisoned. And they're dead."
VAL: "Wouldn't you put sugar-water in there to catch the bugs? Because I'm pretty sure they prefer sugar-water to poison. If you put poison in there, the bugs won't want to go in."
HICK: "Sugar-water, poison...it's the same thing. The bugs go in and get trapped. It's a bug-catcher."
VAL: "Boys, don't ever taste sugar-water for your dad."
And furthermore, after Hick told my mom about his bug-catcher, we warned her never to tell him how pretty it is. Because then she won't just have a cake plate problem and a tiny egg problem, she'll have a bug-catcher problem.
I wonder how bugs would respond to Hick's dirty laundry stuffed up in there.
I made my own to trap fruit flies. Vinegar was the poison of choice.
ReplyDeleteI admit it IS a very pretty bug catcher.
ReplyDeleteYou can fit all of Hick's dirty laundry in there? Does that mean he doesn't wear much clothing or that you keep the laundry done so well that there is never a build up?
ReplyDeleteI think his financial allowance needs to be more closely supervised or radically reduced. Or, maybe just start an account on EBay. Sell his crap. Oh! Wait, maybe you can chuck it down the hole down near the BARn.
ReplyDeleteVal--It IS a pretty bug catcher. Your mother could take hunks of cake off one of her many cake plates and bait the bug catcher with the cake.
ReplyDeletejoeh,
ReplyDeleteThose flies out your way must be intoxicated on polluted water. I always thought their beverage of choice was honey. Like when a bartender in a little hole-in-the-wall called The Bug Catcher tells them to name their poison.
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Stephen,
Perhaps somebody would like to make a children's book with that title. Forget The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Kids will clamor for The Very Pretty Bug Catcher.
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Leenie,
He mostly has work uniforms that are cleaned by the uniform service. So on a weekly basis, I could probably cram all of his unmentionables up in there.
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knancy,
I'm on that allowance adjustment! Just today I found out that he had enough spare cash for two trips driving to Genius's college. Something must be done to trim the fat. Hick already has an eBay account, but sadly, he only buys. If I chucked all of his crap down the sinkhole, there would be no more sinkhole. I'd have to start filling up the other two sinkholes.
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Sioux,
It's not like my mother bakes cakes all the live-long day, Madam! She puts the empty plates on display in her china cabinet. Though she DID offer to bake a cake for Hick any time he needs to give one to somebody, and let him give away the cake plate as well. I hope I shall never see the day when CAKE is wasted on bugs!