H
ow do you herd a hundred live locusts
out of a Jiffy bag? That’s a puzzle I’ve
never needed to answer until last
Friday, when a Jiffy bag full of live
locusts arrived in the post. Why had
someone sent me a hundred live
locusts in a Jiffy bag? Was it inventive hate mail from
one of you, dear readers? Like the time someone
posted a Cellophaned stool to one of my more
illustrious colleagues with an accompanying note —
“From one arse to another”? Sadly not. I’d ordered the
locusts. I’d just expected them to arrive in something
more ... appropriate. Like a box. Or a locust tank.
I now know how you don’t do it. You don’t just rip
the Jiffy bag open thinking it contains a book or
something. I’ve watched enough Attenborough to
know what a cloud of locusts looks like and that’s what
I had, quite suddenly, in my kitchen. And then, for the
rest of the afternoon, desperately, before Harriet got
back from work, I was in damage limitation mode.
First, I saved the coriander. (It was too late for the
basil.) Then, equipped with a colander, a spatula and
all the pots and pans, I herded and I herded, and I can
tell you that locusts are far harder to herd than cats.
Even with our cats offering to help. By some point that
evening I thought I’d got them all, but for the next few
days escapees kept turning up in sugar bowls and cereal
packets and on tiny motorbikes jumping over barbed
wire fences. And every time someone wanted to use
Tupperware they had to check whether it had tenants.
This is a column for anyone who has two children
and is thinking about acquiring a third. I’m not saying
you shouldn’t. I’m just saying you need to consider
all the ramifications. You’ll have already weighed
the obvious things — the added years of toil and
exhaustion and expense and nappies and exams and
car seats and “Daddy, look at what I’ve drawn on the
wall — it’s an aeroplane!” But what’s easy to forget isthe most dangerous thing of all: the erosion of parental
boundaries. I’m calling it the Bearded Dragon Factor.
Any eldest child — and I speak from experience —
has the worst luck. Upon him rests the vicarious hopes
and dreams of his parents. He is handled with kid gloves
and his homework is monitored and he must learn the
piano and, no, he can’t have an iPad until he’s 27. The
next child has less pressure and earlier access to tech
and can give up the guitar after a term, but all that is
counterbalanced by the hideous older brother he can
never outshine. So far, so Old Testament. But then, if
you’re mad enough, the third child comes along and
all inclination to helicopter-parent has gone. Strangely,
free from overattentive minders, number three has
the fairest shot at becoming a well-adjusted human
being. But it’s high risk because he will also be largely
self-governed. He’s the Karakalpakstan of the siblings.
“Can I have a rabbit?” asks Child A. No. Never. Who’s
going to feed it? “Can I build my own computer?” asks
Child B. Maybe next year. “Can I have a bearded
dragon?” asks Child C. Don’t be ridiculous. “Please.” O K.
For the record, I didn’t say OK. Harriet said OK when
I was out. They went to a reptile shop while I was out
and came back with a reptile while I was still out.
To befriend the dragon, explained the man in the
shop, you must hand-feed it 10 live inch-long locusts a
day. Be sure, he added, to hold the locust by the back legs
because the dragon has razor-sharp teeth. My morning
routine was bad enough already. Feed the cats (bleurgh),
feed the dog (hurl), feed everyone else (yawn) and get
them out of the house. Now, because no one else wants
to lose a finger, I’ve had to add “feed the dragon” to the
list. I have to secure the rear end of the poor locust and
wait, with nerves of steel, for the flash of tongue and
teeth and then try not to listen to the crunch. Spew.
The life expectancy of the bearded dragon is 15 years
— seven years longer than when I hope to be an
empty-nester. On its first birthday it graduates from
locusts to choc ice-sized roaches (gag). And when
we have power cuts, as we did last weekend, we have
to provide the dragon with a constant supply of
hot-water bottles, lest its (expensive) terrarium
chills below 30C. I know, one day, I’ll look back on
this midlife menagerie with nostalgia, possibly
even melancholy. But right now, crunch, that day
seems a long way off n
CHARLIE CLIFT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE @mattrudd
MATT RUDD
My morning routine
was bad enough. Now
I’ve had to add “feed
the dragon” to the list
And to top off 2021, a plague
of locusts in my kitchen
Why did we allow our youngest child to get a reptile as a pet?
The Sunday Times Magazine • 5Banca do Antfer
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