Pet Caterpillars

When I was a little girl, my mother would not allow me to have a ‘real’ pet, such as a cat, a dog, or even a goldfish. I considered myself a rather capable and responsible child, but apparently the higher authority disagreed. Something about ‘you can have a pet once you can prove that you can take care of yourself’, or someshit like that.

However, being the bright, creative child I was, I managed to come up with several ways around this hindrance. First, there was my pet rock.

Then there was my flock of stuffed-toy sheep.

I also had a snail, for about two seconds.

But the most memorable of all my pets has to be the caterpillars I had when I was seven years old. One afternoon when I was visiting my aunt, I went on an adventure in her small back garden, and it was there that I first laid eyes on one of my caterpillars.

I stood, transfixed. 

It was as if a spotlight of pure hope shone straight from the asshole of God onto the caterpillar before me. Only then did I realise that I had been living in a world of grey all my life and the only colour in the world came from that caterpillar on that leaf, crawling along with a cuteness that could only be matched by a gabillizillion fluffy kittens or a velvet worm.  Suddenly, I couldn’t imagine life without it – separation from it seemed unbearable to even think about. I knew then that that caterpillar and I were meant to be. Fuck cats or dogs or other ‘real’ pets. A caterpillar was all I needed to be happy.

My mother and aunt eventually found me in the back garden, where I proceeded to string together the best, most intelligent and mature argument I could for why I needed to take the caterpillar home with me.

To my surprise and delight, both my mother and my aunt approved of my desire to have a pet caterpillar. Not only did they tell me I could take home the caterpillar I’d found, but they proceeded to help me look for more caterpillars so that my caterpillar would have some friends. A large plastic jar was found for me to put my caterpillars in, and within it I proceeded to make a habitat that I thought any caterpillar would kill to live in. My mother even cut airholes in the lid of the jar so they could breathe.

When we went back home that afternoon, I sat in the back of the car with my caterpillars, feeling like the luckiest seven-year-old in all the world. I thought scornfully about the kids my age whose parents had given them ponies or goldfish or rabbits to play with. Those kids thought they knew happiness? They were wrong. My caterpillars were better than a pony and a goldfish and a rabbit put together. So what if you could ride a pony? My caterpillars could make the middle of their bodies go up in a little “n” shape when they moved along their twigs. My caterpillars could make holes in leaves without eating the whole thing. My caterpillars would one day turn into butterflies. I’d like to see your pony turn into a butterfly, I thought spitefully at any and every kid in the world who owned a horse.

That evening, I gave my caterpillars some extra leaves from the garden so they wouldn’t go hungry overnight. Then I placed them on top of my dresser, bade each one of them goodnight, and went to sleep with a smile on my face.

The next morning, I woke early and sprang from my bed, eager to spend the day with my new caterpillars.

I rushed to my caterpillars, all set to bid each one good morning. That was when I realised that something wasn’t right. One of the caterpillars was lying on the bottom of the jar, not moving. And there was some kind of insect on the wall of the jar that hadn’t been in there the night before.

Caterpilley didn’t wake up, so I went and got my mother. When I explained the situation to her, she told me that the black insect in the jar was a parasitic wasp that had been inside Caterpilley for quite a while, but had only just eaten its way out. She told me that Caterpilley wouldn’t be waking up. For a seven-year-old, I held it together pretty well.

We got rid of the parasitic wasp, and put Caterpilley’s body in the garden so it could return to nature. At that point, I didn’t even think to be angry at the wasp; all I could think about was the loss of Caterpilley. My world of colour had been reduced to grey once more.

Still, eventually I managed to see past the grief that wracked my soul and look on the bright side: I still had three healthy caterpillars waiting for me to play with them. It was what Caterpilley would want me to do, after all. So, in Caterpilley’s memory, I vowed to myself to live out the time I had with my remaining caterpillars as fully as I could muster.

I took them on dinner-dates.

We went for long, romantic walks together.

We even stared romantically at each other in bed before going to sleep each night.

For a few days, I lived my life like this – in simple but blissful contentment. Despite the loss of one caterpillar, I was able to be happy with the remaining three.

But my happiness was short-lived. One fateful day, I was returning from the garden with some new leaves to feed my caterpillars and was met with a distressing sight.

One of my caterpillars lay on the bottom of the jar, twitching half-heartedly as something black and ugly forced its way out of its belly. I knew what it was instantly.

It was another parasitic wasp, come to destroy my happiness by taking the life of another innocent caterpillar. And I was powerless to help; I could only watch on as my caterpillar was killed slowly and painfully by this demon-wasp from hell.

To the average bystander, the wasp emerging from the belly of my caterpillar looked reasonably gross but not too psychologically wounding:

But to me, it seemed a thousand times worse.

And it was enough to make me snap. I got angry. The wasp was taunting me. It knew how much I loved my caterpillar, and it took great delight in seeing me suffer. But I had had enough. Every cell in my little-girl body was ready to kill.

Unfortunately, as a seven-year-old, my ability to destroy things wasn't very.. well-developed, shall we say.

My mother disposed of the parasitic wasp and the caterpillar corpse, and I held a small mourning ceremony for my second dead caterpillar. Within two weeks, parasitic wasps had destroyed my other two caterpillars, which were disposed of and mourned over in a similar fashion. I was left with nothing but an empty jar and a broken heart.

And that is one of the many reasons I hate wasps.

Addendum: When I began work on this blog post, I told my mother I was writing about the traumatic event in my childhood when all of my pet caterpillars were killed by parasitic wasps.

Her comment on this upsetting memory was as follows: ‘Well, that was okay. You got a different pet instead. Two pets for the price of one!’