Let me get right to the point: Elizabeth is attempting to domesticate a Stink Bug.
Scourge of the Mid-Atlantic for the past several years, invader of our screened porch and therefore our shiny new house last fall to the extent that we had to vacuum them up by the scores every day and to the extent that we couldn’t even use our screened porch or open the french doors connecting it to the house, a Stink Bug has now been captured and shanghaied INTO our house, upstairs and into her bedroom — on purpose.
It has been named, directly enough, “Stinky.”
Stinky has been inhabiting the plastic, cheapy terrarium shown in the photo for about a week now. I don’t know what the life expectancy of a Stink Bug is, but I am imagining his week in captivity will end up being a majority of it.
The girls have been feeding Stinky the usual Stink Bug stuff: organic lettuce, organic arugula, that sort of stuff.
At night, sometimes Stinky gets placed in the windowsill between the window and the screen…for fresh air.
I wondered how long this was going to go on, and then last night I heard Wife putting a kind and gentle end to the whole domestication of a Stink Bug issue. (No, she didn’t squoosh it.)
Girls, I think it’s not entirely fair to keep something that is meant to live outdoors penned up inside, so tomorrow, I’d like you to find a nice place out in the woods or yard to release Stinky.
OK, Mommy.
In other words: The girls are going to take Stinky outside, so that Stinky the Stink Bug can do what Stink bugs are meant to do. So Stinky will spend a little time outside, then spend the entire rest of his time and life exploring little cracks around our screened porch or waiting on the trim of the front door for us to open it for a split second, so that Stinky can get back into our house.
If Stinky is particularly successful, he may make it upstairs, to Elizabeth’s room, back to her windowsill or back into the plastic terrarium.
Who says you can’t go home again?
MyThreeDaughters 