No Respect

Yesterday, riding my bike home after work, I saw a neighbor I had never met before. She was out watering her potted flowers. The hill I had to bike up is quite steep so I don't make it up very far before I have to stop and walk the rest of the way. This time, though, there was something in front of my stopped bike. It was a gorgeous neon yellow caterpillar creeping it's merry little way across the road! Very beautiful. I'll explain why I have no picture to prove this in a minute. . .

The woman was a little startled at the fact that my bike was stopped so she actually turned around and looked at me. "Konnichiwa!," she said gently. I responded and turned my attention back to the scuttling creature. At this point, my backpack was off my back and I was searching for my camera to take a snapshot of this beauty. She must have thought she had put something in my way and turned my way to apologize with a very heartfelt "Gomenne", when she saw why I had actually stopped.

I tried to tell her it was ok, "daijoubu", and not to worry about anything, but she was already on her way over. The woman saw the lovely caterpillar and, giggling a little, kept apologizing while she began KICKING the poor thing over to the side of the road. Obviously, this was not going to end well for the little bugger. At one point, a stream of green slimy blood flew out of him, like a little caterpillar horror movie and I saw his lifeless body land right next to my tire. She kept giggling and came over with her hand full of dead flowers, leaned down, and picked up the carcass inside the flowers. She then, feeling quite accomplished, walked to the side of the road and tossed the handful of death into the weeds of a little field.

I felt so crushed by this. . . I was the reason that little guy was dead! And he was gorgeous and really just trying to cross the road. Why did the beautiful, neon yellow caterpillar cross the road? To get squashed by the crazy, giggly, flower-watering, neighbor-ignoring Japanese lady. . . tut tut