One of Archie's favourite things to do is collect bugs and study them. Every month my mother buys him a bug magazine that comes with a collectable real life insect or bug petrified in a block of perspex. Can't help but notice bug magazine editors are obsessed with bug sex. Every time walk past Archie's room at bed time Col is reading him the latest instalment of bug sex life in lurid detail. "Eeeew" I think to myself.
"Don't be so immature!" Col calls out. Ooops. Had not realised I was thinking aloud again.
After school Archie catches a Cricket then studies reference material to determine the cricket is female. He then sets outside again to find cricket a life partner to mate with.
Jackpot! Doesn't take long. My, that was quick! I say. Archie introduces crickets to one another then sets about making their tupperware home comfortable, complete with flower petals (their preferred food) and some mood setting grass. Having read they lay their eggs on a dirt nest he constructs one in corner of tupperware love den. Ambience must be spot on as by next afternoon Archie calls me in. Hurry! he says, Crickets are real life mating, I can't believe it, hurry mum!
OK I say. Here I am, yes, that is certainly something! Ruby gives me reproachful look suggesting Archie's innocence is inappropriate and it's high time I furnish his young mind with the facts of life presumably so he can adopt the requisite amount of embarrassment for these matters.
The following afternoon Archie invites his Nickie over to see the chirpy new family pets (actually it is only the male who chirps, a mating strategy) and together they clean out the tupperware den, discussing the chirpy one.
"He's already mated with his wife, did you know Nic?"
Ruby and I, at work in the next room, exchange looks. Surely we heard wrong.
"Nic, did you hear me? He's already mated with his wife".
Ruby gives me another, I'm telling you look.
Archie and Nic decide tupperware home would be more interesting with some more crickets and neither care to wait for the arrival of baby crickets. A search in the backyard proves fruitful and three more are introduced to the now crowded Tupperware den. They apply glad wrap then head out for the trampoline which will occupy the next hour before Nic's dad arrives, whereupon the boys will then run and hide forcing his dad and I to yell threats into the neighbourhood for the next twenty minutes before they show themselves and Nic can be taken home.
The following afternoon a grim discovery. One of the crickets has died (dehydration?) and the others have pulled it's legs off. I have reached my limit. "Archie it's time these crickets go back out to the yard", I say.
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