Not to oversimplify, but the great Circle of Life can be summed up by that classic song that begins, "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly, but I don’t know why she swallowed that fly. I guess she’ll die."
After swallowing the fly, she swallowed a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, a goat, a cow, and finally a horse all in a vain attempt to catch the unfortunate critter that had gone before.
This song has much to teach us: Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Keep your mouth closed when there are flies around. But the lesson I take from it is that every organism has to eat, and some not only have to eat, they have to be eaten in order for creatures higher up the food chain to eat – me, for example. It all works fine and dandy – unless you’re the one being eaten.
I may be stretching things a bit, since cows and horses are vegetarians. And if the old woman had known that, she might still be with us today. Nevertheless, I think the song does make an interesting point about the Circle of Life. I know it. I respect it. I just don’t think it has to happen in my basement.
It’s fall; winter is coming and the spiders and flies and everyone else involved in the great Circle of Life are moving into my warm house. Well, not everyone. No birds, goats, or horses yet.But the other night we had a beetle in our basement that was so big, I suspect it stood up on its hind legs and let itself in the front door. My son had mercy on it and took it outside because that’s what we would have done if a mammal that size had wandered into our house.
In some cultures a cricket in the home is a sign of good luck, but I know that doesn’t hold true in our culture because I’ve had way more crickets than I’ve had good luck. So when I heard one under my desk this morning, I got on my knees to track it down like the criminal that it was (breaking and entering, disturbing the peace).
I couldn’t see the cricket, but I could see a huge spider, probably on its way to find the cricket. I think it was a wolf spider, because it was about that size! In retrospect, I wish I’d let the spider find the cricket. Then I could have taken care of them both at the same time. But I killed the spider and spent the rest of the morning listening to the cricket sing, probably a happy, little ditty about being spared from the big, bad wolf … spider.
A few years ago, our home was on the migration path for some type of moth. They were everywhere! The birds were so fat and happy they couldn’t lift off the ground. I couldn’t lift off the ground either, but I wasn’t happy. My biggest concern was that the moths in my house wouldn’t hear the news when it was time to travel on.
Every time I turned on a light, I felt like I should apologize to them. "I’m sorry! Did I disturb you?" They flew out of my newspaper. They flew around inside my car when I was driving. One even flew out of my dishwasher! Fortunately, the dishwasher hadn’t been run yet. I don’t know what I would have done if the moth had come out washed, rinsed, and sanitized.
Through it all, that song kept going through my head. I know an old woman who swallowed a fly, but I don’t know why she didn’t get a fly swatter.
"Around the Bend" appears regularly in the Advocate and about 25 newspapers in the Midwest, including the Rapid City Journal. Rosby, Rapid City, S.D., lives with her husband and school-aged son. For more on Rosby, visit www.dorothyrosby.com.