We're pathologically social. We're professional leisurists. We're burrito lovers, bar flies, art whores and music nerds. We dish the good dirt, and we'll risk a parking ticket for a cheap sample sale. Sometimes, we blog drunk.
Ward on the Street: Excuse me, can I handle your cockroach?
"Rise and shine, nerds! It's bug fair o'clock!"
Rallying a posse on a Sunday morning is never easy, particularly when you're leading them toward live scorpions.
So when I sent out a 10 am text to my hungover cohorts, I wasn't surprised to wind up heading to the Natural History Museum's annual bug fair alone, waiting for them to stumble over later. As a bug enthusiast, I could have carpooled with Dick Cheney and still been in good spirits.
The museum—which has steadily gained indie cred with their First Friday concerts—was a frenetic jumble of booths and pamphlets, writhing silkworms in terrariums, people handling tarantulas, and thousands of pinned butterflies.
Also among the frightening critters were scores of waist-high humans, tugging their parents from ant farms to beehives trapped under glass. Sure, I got bumped in the leg with an $800 stroller more than once, but not much can tarnish the joy of buying a cocoon or attending a demonstration on how to prepare Cajun seasoned crickets. And just like any good expo, there were even a few booth babes, including one entomologist named Karen who managed to look radiant while kissing a cockroach.
After admiring some carefully preserved stickbugs and squinting through a microscope at mosquito larvae, I breezed past an aquarium of live Madagascar hissing roaches and was offered the option let one crawl on my bare skin. Generally, I would say no to this offer. But the bug fair only comes once a year.
Only 364 days left,
Miss Alie Ward
Miss Alie Ward
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