I’ve come to the conclusion that certain insects are not very intelligent. Either that, or they are nearsighted. Or suicidal.
I have a spider web in one corner of my porch, that has become the final resting place for numerous small flying insects. I can see the graveyard from where I sit in my rocking chair on the front porch, which is about five feet away from this particular spider web.
The way I figure it, a small flying insect that approaches the web ought to be able to see his friends and relatives hanging there in the web (and some unfamiliar strangers, too) and if he (or she) had any intelligence, he (or she) would turn around and head for the hills, so to speak.
But obviously, judging from the number of small flying insects that get added to the web every day, someone is not paying attention.
Or, like I said, maybe they’re nearsighted.
This doesn’t mean that all small flying insects are nearsighted, or careless, because I still see plenty of insects flying around, footloose and fancy free. So it would seem that insects exhibit a wide range of intellectual abilities, or visual competence.
I’m not completely comfortable suggesting that the some insects suffer from suicidal thoughts. That’s a dark subject, and this is supposed to be a humor column.
Another possibility is lack of education, or a poor upbringing. Their parents and teachers never sat them down and talked to them about spiders. I understand why. That’s a very uncomfortable conversation to have, with your children. But you would think, a necessary conversation.
“Bobby, I want to tell you about what happened to your uncle Fred. You remember uncle Fred? Happy-go-lucky Uncle Fred? Always goofing around? Well…”
Not implying that Uncle Fred had a low IQ, of course. We don’t have to go into his paranoid tendencies, or his failed marriages. Now that we think about it, he did tend to squint, so maybe he had poor eyesight and didn’t want anyone to know.
Fact is, we don’t fully understand why Fred did what he did. And it’s okay for the children to know that. That we don’t have all the answers. But we care about them, and we are willing to have these uncomfortable conversations.
And what about the spider? The spider needs to be part of the conversation, if we want to raise intelligent children. You can’t talk about what happened to Uncle Fred without bringing the spider into the discussion.
This can get a little bit political, especially if we are expecting teachers to address the subject in school. Many people believe the “spider conversation” should happen at home, between the parents and their kids.
But we also know that many parents never get around to talking about spiders. (Or even getting their kids’ eyesight checked, for that matter.)
Did Uncle Fred’s parents ever discuss the topic with him? Not that I can recall.
How hard would that have been?
“Freddy, you’re getting to be a young man and you’re starting to hang out with your buddies, and your mother and I are okay with that, because we want you to grow up independent. Which means, you’re probably going to make some mistakes, and then you’ll learn from them. But some mistakes are more serious than others.
“I don’t think I ever told you about your uncle Herman…”
We can’t expect our kids to be intelligent, unless we’re willing to talk about spiders.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.