Grub Season!!!

I was just digging in the dirt, as one does when one has just showered and has work to do, when I discovered that it is once again GRUB SEASON! 

I sat peacefully sifting out the grubs and flicking them into a bucket, losing count after 43, when these things occurred to me: 

1. I must be a grown up to be able to do this without even wearing garden gloves. As a kid I would have run SCREAMING from the sight, and needed twenty two showers minimum. 
2. I’m a hypocrite, blithely tossing the live & wiggly grubs into the garden trimmings/recycle bucket so the city, not me, will be ultimately responsible for killing them, or for spreading my grub infestation through city compost. And I am a hypocrite as an animal lover who feels morally superior for not eating mammals or wearing leather, yet assigning innocent grubs to trauma, homelessness and their likely death.

                                           Why was I ok with this hypocrisy?  

                               The answer seemed to be: GRUBS ARE NOT CUTE.

CUTE

NOT CUTE

Grubs are little, which usually makes things cute. And they curl up like baby humans and kitties. It’s not just their lack of fur or feathers because little turtles and lizards are cute... We even think animals who could rip us to bits are cute: bears, lions. 

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law, normally a macho and reasonable person, completely lost it over an earwig in her house. She insisted that it was NOT the kind of bug you move outside, it was the kind you SQUASH!

I laughed at her at the time, but having just spent 45 minutes sending innocent beings to their death, I get it!

It's not because they're ugly. It is because they are the ones who'll win. They are the ones who will have the last word and their smirking, underworld smugness creeps us out. They are the death-bugs who will eat our eyes and enter our orifices when we can no longer defend ourselves. Unlike bears and lions, we will have no fighting chance against the grubs.

No, wait. These grubs have been devouring the roots of everything I plant. They must be vegetarians, like me. Hmm. Maybe this is about garden revenge. Or maybe I'm just a gigantic bully.

xo Amy