Please don’t pass the crickets (Oct. 27)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
One of the things that amuses me is to try out new brands of pet food on the cat. She is a finicky eater. She will sometimes turn and walk away if I put something in her dish she doesn’t like.
A friend of mine had a cat even more finicky than the one who presently lets me live in her house. He used to rinse off his cat’s dish and put it in the dishwasher after she was through with it.The dish, when he had put food in it, was always put on a fresh paper towell on the floor.
I’m not quite that fussy, but I do treat this particular cat with a certain deference. I buy those little stacked paper bowls, the ones with cartoon characters on them, to put the cat’s food in. I think she enjoys looking at the cartoons. They show the Muppets. I haven’t seen bowls with cats and mice printed on them, or I would buy those.
I digress. I was in the pet shop the other day, loading up on their most exotic-sounding cat victuals. When I brought my armful to the counter, the customer in front of me asked an intriguing question: “Did you get my crickets for me?”
“Sure,” said the pet store man.
“I want the big ones,” the customer said.
“I got ’em,” said the clerk.
The two of them went around to another shelf, and I could hear them ooh-ing and ah-ing.
Another clerk waited on me, and I was out of the store. I had missed my chance to ask the customer what kind of pet he had that ate crickets.
I did a little research, and discovered it most likely was a lizard, or a frog; but I also learned that, in some cultures, people by the millions eat crickets, usually fried.
Was this customer frying crickets for himself? If so, he’s a better man than I am.
I hope the cat doesn’t get a taste for crickets. I can be pushed only so far.
