Banana Slugs and Other Lunchbox Delicacies
The security light brightened our porch as I mounted the front steps. It was now dark by 4:00pm, a typical dreary December in Portland. I spied the elusive lunchbox open on the wicker chair. I was not surprised he forgot to unpack it in the kitchen. At least it's in the vicinity of our house! It took the entire semester and a bit of mom nagging for my 14-year-old son to bring the frickin lunchbox home before winter break. Hallelujah! There is hope for this child.
Holy hell! Is that a banana slug? Stepping closer I wondered how a slug had climbed inside the lunchbox with lightning speed. It's the Pacific Northwest and during the rainy season slugs are everywhere. Slugs sliming the pavement meet death by foot traffic, while slugs nestled on trees disguise themselves in the thick forest canopy.
I once picked this slug from my carpeted stairs thinking it was sock lint:
I imagined this large turbo slug must've fallen from the porch ceiling, meeting his death with break neck speed.
"What the heck is on the front porch?" I asked opening the front door.
"It's my lunch eaten by a bunch of fruit flies," my son replied casually, refusing to look up from his gaming device.
My 9th grade son has opted for PB&J every day of the week in high school, wrapped up in his front backpack pocket since his lunchbox went MIA. I figured his modus operandi left the possibility for off-campus fast food lunches with friends, never suspecting an alternative motive. Less is more, my mid-forties motto, and I admired his teenage efficiency. As parents of four children, we've packed at least a thousand lunches by the end of fifth grade when we pass the 'cheese stick' torch to our pre-teen children. In all my decades of lunch duty, I've never seen anything as grotesque as a moldy banana carcass surrounded by dead fruit flies!
"Mom, my lunchbox smelled so bad I couldn't ride the bus home," he said, claiming he waited alone on the high school steps for over an hour before his sister came to pick him up. I was proud for a moment. At least he's resourceful with enough street smarts to avoid rotten bananas on the city bus! I felt sorry for the poor kid alone in the cold drizzle after school. It's winter, the season when American boys refuse to wear coats over their short sleeves. Sweet boy must've frozen to death to please his mom.
Upon further cross-examination, I learned he stopped using his locker back in September when an infestation of fruit flies had taken up residence. No wonder he's been slipping a sandwich in his backpack! I imagined thousands of fruit flies drawn to his locker like bees to a honey pot. The stench of a rotten banana abandoned more than three months, hardly detectable above the aroma of teen puberty and Axe body spray roaming high school hallways. I hardly blame him for evading suspicion and abandoning the locker!
"Freshmen are so stupid!" my daughter replied from the other room, confirming that my children do, in fact, listen to me. A 16-year-old high school junior, she's quick to assert superior life experience over her brothers, and not just at the kitchen table. She has her own lunchbox frustrations when brothers and their friends devour fridge and pantry and she's left with a few carrots and a jar of pickles by week-end.
I rendered the decaying lunchbox a proper trash bin burial, thawed ice pack and all, leaving my son to his own backpack sandwich packing. He's done a fine job of figuring his way out of stinky situations so far in high school, demonstrating responsibility and critical thinking, superior to most politicians in our nation's capital. I have no fear he learned life skills from his lunchbox experiment without mom advice. Less is more. Who needs a lunchbox and locker anyway? Or coat for that matter! Bananas anyone?
Holy hell! Is that a banana slug? Stepping closer I wondered how a slug had climbed inside the lunchbox with lightning speed. It's the Pacific Northwest and during the rainy season slugs are everywhere. Slugs sliming the pavement meet death by foot traffic, while slugs nestled on trees disguise themselves in the thick forest canopy.I once picked this slug from my carpeted stairs thinking it was sock lint:
My husband was feeding the dogs yesterday when I spotted this little beauty sliming his slippers!
I imagined this large turbo slug must've fallen from the porch ceiling, meeting his death with break neck speed.
Upon closer examination, I was disgusted. It was a banana alright and not a banana slug, surrounded by possible seeds from a long extinct slice of bread.
"What the heck is on the front porch?" I asked opening the front door.
"It's my lunch eaten by a bunch of fruit flies," my son replied casually, refusing to look up from his gaming device.
My 9th grade son has opted for PB&J every day of the week in high school, wrapped up in his front backpack pocket since his lunchbox went MIA. I figured his modus operandi left the possibility for off-campus fast food lunches with friends, never suspecting an alternative motive. Less is more, my mid-forties motto, and I admired his teenage efficiency. As parents of four children, we've packed at least a thousand lunches by the end of fifth grade when we pass the 'cheese stick' torch to our pre-teen children. In all my decades of lunch duty, I've never seen anything as grotesque as a moldy banana carcass surrounded by dead fruit flies!
"Mom, my lunchbox smelled so bad I couldn't ride the bus home," he said, claiming he waited alone on the high school steps for over an hour before his sister came to pick him up. I was proud for a moment. At least he's resourceful with enough street smarts to avoid rotten bananas on the city bus! I felt sorry for the poor kid alone in the cold drizzle after school. It's winter, the season when American boys refuse to wear coats over their short sleeves. Sweet boy must've frozen to death to please his mom.
Upon further cross-examination, I learned he stopped using his locker back in September when an infestation of fruit flies had taken up residence. No wonder he's been slipping a sandwich in his backpack! I imagined thousands of fruit flies drawn to his locker like bees to a honey pot. The stench of a rotten banana abandoned more than three months, hardly detectable above the aroma of teen puberty and Axe body spray roaming high school hallways. I hardly blame him for evading suspicion and abandoning the locker!
"Freshmen are so stupid!" my daughter replied from the other room, confirming that my children do, in fact, listen to me. A 16-year-old high school junior, she's quick to assert superior life experience over her brothers, and not just at the kitchen table. She has her own lunchbox frustrations when brothers and their friends devour fridge and pantry and she's left with a few carrots and a jar of pickles by week-end.
I rendered the decaying lunchbox a proper trash bin burial, thawed ice pack and all, leaving my son to his own backpack sandwich packing. He's done a fine job of figuring his way out of stinky situations so far in high school, demonstrating responsibility and critical thinking, superior to most politicians in our nation's capital. I have no fear he learned life skills from his lunchbox experiment without mom advice. Less is more. Who needs a lunchbox and locker anyway? Or coat for that matter! Bananas anyone?
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