Naykki2

>"respect-them-as-intelligent-life-forms-pausing-briefly-on-Earth-before-m
oving-on-to-conquer-distant-galaxies" way.

Ross, my 16 yo entomologist (who volunteers at the arthropod zoo for the
state science museum) loved this! <grin> He's loved insects for the last
decade, and I'm fairly certain that's the field he'll be going into.

Recently, they had some extra Madagascar, hissing cockroaches at the
arthropod zoo, so they gave him four. When I came to pick Ross up, he
excitedly showed them to me, and the director quickly added, with a nervous
look, "As long as your mother says it's okay." I replied that, sure, it was
fine with me. I have since found, when mentioning my son's new pets to
friends and family, that most mothers don't have that level of cockroach
acceptance (actually, I think the hissing cockroaches are kind of cute
<grin>).

My difficulties are with the many-legged creatures. I'm gradually getting
used to millipedes (the wave action of their legs bothered me for some
reason) (btw, we recently learned at the museum that the most legs they've
counted on a millipede is around 780). Centipedes - particularly the black
ones with the neon yellow legs, still bother me, however (or is it the neon
yellow ones with the black legs? I look away too quickly to remember <g>).

Laura