This is definitely not about an SC.
When I worked at a weekly community newspaper a decade ago, many of the townspeople seemed to see us as a sort of walking encyclopedia ... or perhaps a pre-Google Google. Need some information? Call your local paper! Since I love trivia and trivia games, I enjoyed this part of the job.
And since this was before all these nice little papers got chewed up by giant dino-corporations -- big lumbering body, tiny little brain -- we had enough staff (four whole people in the editorial department!! -- that we could take the time to look this stuff up for people. OK, end of rant ...
One day I get a call from a nice little old lady. She's all upset. It's late fall. It's cold. Very cold. And just that day she'd spotted ... wait for it ... a poor little caterpillar crawling up the exterior wall of her house.
Her: "I don't know what to do! He's going to freeze to death out there! Should I bring him in, do you think??"
Me: (momentarily thrown for a loop) "Um ... I don't know ... tell you what, let me see what I can find out and I'll get back to you ..."
So I called an expert on bugs at a provincial university. After he stopped laughing, he advised me to let the nice little old lady know that if she took the poor caterpillar into her house, yes, it would spin a cocoon -- but eventually, of course, it would do what such things normally do and then she would be stuck with a butterfly -- or, more likely, a moth -- until the weather warmed up enough for her to let it out. He said if the caterpillar was stupid enough to hang around until it froze, well, that was natural selection for you.
Of course, I didn't include that last bit when I called her back. I did, however, let her know that whatever it morphed into would be her "guest" until spring came. She lost most of her enthusiasm for the project at that point. I also fudged things a bit and assured her the expert was positive the caterpillar would find shelter before the winter set in.
I hope she had a good life. She deserved it. I mean really, how many people worry about bugs??
When I worked at a weekly community newspaper a decade ago, many of the townspeople seemed to see us as a sort of walking encyclopedia ... or perhaps a pre-Google Google. Need some information? Call your local paper! Since I love trivia and trivia games, I enjoyed this part of the job.
And since this was before all these nice little papers got chewed up by giant dino-corporations -- big lumbering body, tiny little brain -- we had enough staff (four whole people in the editorial department!! -- that we could take the time to look this stuff up for people. OK, end of rant ...
One day I get a call from a nice little old lady. She's all upset. It's late fall. It's cold. Very cold. And just that day she'd spotted ... wait for it ... a poor little caterpillar crawling up the exterior wall of her house.
Her: "I don't know what to do! He's going to freeze to death out there! Should I bring him in, do you think??"
Me: (momentarily thrown for a loop) "Um ... I don't know ... tell you what, let me see what I can find out and I'll get back to you ..."
So I called an expert on bugs at a provincial university. After he stopped laughing, he advised me to let the nice little old lady know that if she took the poor caterpillar into her house, yes, it would spin a cocoon -- but eventually, of course, it would do what such things normally do and then she would be stuck with a butterfly -- or, more likely, a moth -- until the weather warmed up enough for her to let it out. He said if the caterpillar was stupid enough to hang around until it froze, well, that was natural selection for you.
Of course, I didn't include that last bit when I called her back. I did, however, let her know that whatever it morphed into would be her "guest" until spring came. She lost most of her enthusiasm for the project at that point. I also fudged things a bit and assured her the expert was positive the caterpillar would find shelter before the winter set in.
I hope she had a good life. She deserved it. I mean really, how many people worry about bugs??
Comment