Pajama Party

I have managed with mice and squirrels, and a family of migrant raccoons in my attic, but these caterpillars have got to go.

Okay, maybe they aren’t caterpillars: I’m no entomologist. But you know something, I don’t care.

I have always said that a big plus to living where I do, set back from the road, nestled in the trees, are the wild creatures that I see every day.
In our twenty years in this house we have seen fox and deer, wild turkey, families of quail, a great, waddling old badger (I swear!) and a whole host of other creatures cavorting about (or in )our home. And apart from taking action to stop a few from eating away at the attic timber, we have all gotten along just fine.

But these caterpillars are making me nuts.

First of all, it’s the sheer number: I am sure some naturalist has already explained why, and it probably has something to do with the 50 feet of snow we just recovered from, and the 40 days of rain that followed, but all that I know is I am being invaded.

Choose your allusion: invasion of the body snatchers; men from mars, plagues of locust. It all fits.

And what the heck are those clumps of twisted bark hanging from nearly invisible threads? It looks like some creature climbed three quarters of the way down, ditched their pajamas, and hopped off. Are their naked caterpillars cavorting in the bushes?

My son, the college boy, is pretty darn messy: but even he doesn’t leave his pajamas balled up and hanging from the ceiling.

That’s a scary thought though, isn’t it: an invasion of tiny college boys who move in to your yard, sleep all day, eat pounds and pounds of Cheerios, and talk back to you when you ask them how the job hunting is going?

And you know what, the fuzz on my sluggish son’s chin bears an eerie resemblance to the fuzz of these caterpillars.


Wait a second, I’ve got to go check something.


Okay, I’m back, and you can relax: the Cheerios are disappearing at the same alarming rate as before, and there are no small bite marks on the boxes, or tiny rolled-up pajamas in the cabinet where we keep the cereal.


I’m not paranoid, but you have to admit we’ve had it pretty rough in the past few years here in America’s Home Town.

I used to boast about our ‘ocean effect: breezes off the water from Cape Cod and Buzzards Bays, that kept the temperatures a good ten degrees lower than abutting communities. Now I wonder if that same weather pattern is responsible for our record snows, long-lasting murk, and the growth in the critter population.

Is it me or do we have more than our fair share of skunks in Plymouth?
And whatever happened to the ‘wild’ in the wild turkeys that are thriving in these parts? Our turkeys are not domesticated fowl, their tax-paying citizens. You can set your watch by their appearance at certain well-worn entry points on Beaver Dam Road in the morning, and I swear I sat next to one on the train to Boston: he tried to disguise himself, but that turkey-neck gave him away.

But back to the real pillars of our society: the caterpillars. Did you ever see the old Marlon Brando classic motor bike film, ‘The Wild Ones’? That’s the way these caterpillars have come rolling in to our town: loud, obnoxious, and looking for trouble. What’s next, is what I want to know? Are they going to want to date our daughters?

The moral of ‘The Wild One’s is not to pre-judge leather-clad motorcycle punks. They’re really not so bad.

Okay, I am willing to admit right now that I misunderstand these caterpillars. They are probably just harmless young moths, trying to enjoy themselves before they are drawn to the flame of adulthood. But if I get just one more of these things stuck in my hair, or find another one in my cereal bowl, Brando or not, I am going to hire a crop duster and have them eradicate every thing that crawls, hops or flies.

That will leave only the problem of getting rid of 32,000 sets of caterpillar pajamas –and that’s just in my yard.

Is there a Goodwill for critters?