Pupa Casings

It was a chilly fall day, and I had gone to visit my beloved aunt. As we were raking leaves the commercial for the Magic Mesh Door Screen popped into my head. I told my aunt she should invest in one not only to get a breeze through her house without worry of bugs, but so that we could pile the leaves on the screen, and then toss them up into the air and have a leaf shower. Like a slow-motion scene from a movie, us laughing and twirling in a slow-motion dance of sheer existential joy. And then out of the corner of my periphery I saw her old neighbor lady creep out of her house and saunter down the driveway in her over-sized glasses and worn bathrobe. She looked around, and then opened the back doors of her conversion (serial killer) van. I watched as she pulled a mason jar out of her robe pocket and began reaching in the van and pulling out small brown things to put in the jar. I went around the side of the tree for a better angle, and for hiding purposes, and I saw that her van was full of pupa casings! I told my aunt, "Look, its a pupa hoarder!!!" As she picked up the casings one-by-one, holding them up for inspection, I tried to surreptitiously capture the horror on my camera.

What a strange dream that was. In the middle of the night I texted myself notes on the dream because that one was too good to forget! I did just watch the screen door infomercial and I am sold. I love to air out the abode, but there's nothing worse than a fly in my tea. I don't kill insects as a matter of principle, but I do go on fly killing frenzies because they drive me crazy! But now with the new Magic Mesh Door Screen, this will no longer be a problem.

When I was a little girl, I had a love of insects (I am still intrigued) instilled in me by my mother. She made a point of showing me all the neat insects she happened to catch. Anything from a lady bug, to a shiny green beetle, and even tarantulas were captured and studied in our household. I had a book all about bugs that I loved to read. One year the locusts were out and about, and my mom gave me a mason jar and let me collect their hollow shells. I took the mostly empty jar with me when we visited my mom's friend, and I searched every tree and plant in her backyard for my treasures. When we left I had nearly filled it to the top! Maybe this memory came back as a subconscious fear that my life of strange interests and recent vow of celibacy will ultimately lead me to become... a pupa hoarder!