An Inchworm Should Be

I'm eating lunch.  I'm not the only one.  I've fed my older daughter a salad with some Ikea veggie balls and pesto sauce.  Seemed to go over pretty well. There's not much of it left.  Now she's gone and returned to her room because that’s where the charger is.  And the Mrs. had some of the repeat version I prepared for her and myself with the Swedish chicken balls.  But she's headed off as well.  The only one's left is me.  Me at the green caterpillar.  He was up on his twenty or so hind legs going at it on a stem of parsley here in the kitchen when I looked over at him a minute ago. 

He's about an inch long, like an inchworm should be.  We discovered him the other day on a plant of parsley my wife had bought to grow and . . . to eat.  It’s invariably revolting at first; to see a grub on something you might have shoved in your mouth.  Somehow this guy won us all over though.  We didn’t dispose of him in disgust but rather put the plant off to the side and began to observe.  “Let’s see if he turns into a butterfly.”

It’s a rather simple ritual that turns a pest into a pet.  No one would dream of hurting this fella, now that we’ve decided to watch him over time.  He has a remarkable dotted green back that is lovely, in a wormy sort of way.  I’ve been referring to him as a male and I have no idea really.  Facile, but I would probably assign feminine gender if saw this critter as a butterfly, pulsing its wings, preparing to fly. 

I don’t know if he’ll be satisfied to denude this plant and commence with his process.  He’d better be as he’ll find it slim pickin’s, if he goes out searching for things, beyond this particular safe space we’ve anointed.  I don’t know if anyone can vouch for what will happen if he winds up somewhere, inching along where isn’t supposed to be.  One can imagine many inglorious endings.  But for now, he’s got good ounce or two of parsley left to consume and he seems to know he has a good thing going on there by the window.