Kiss My Knits!

A couple of weeks ago, I told my husband, “Just so you know, I am expecting a card for Mother’s Day. That’s something that should happen.”

“Good to know,” he replied.

Fast forward to today. Mother’s Day. And it’s been fantastic. I got breakfast in bed, messed around on the internet, did a little gardening… all in all, a stellar day.

A couple of hours ago, my husband walked into the room, shielding a mysterious package from my view.

“Um, so I did get you something for Mother’s Day.” So sweet. I wasn’t expecting a gift, just a card.

“And it looked great on the internet. But then when it got here… well…”

And with that, he unveiled a “Butterfly Collection Blue Morpho.”

I stared at the tiny dead-looking butterfly at the bottom of the jar. “Oh… honey, that’s very sweet!”

“On the internet, it looked like it was a light illusion or something, gently fluttering around. But then it got here, and we tried it out and… well…”

I pressed the demo button and literally jumped back in alarm.


And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where you need to see and more importantly HEAR the video to understand.



That’s right. It’s not so much a little butterfly gently fluttering around inside a jar. It’s more of a beautiful and terrified insect hurling itself against the glass walls of its prison, the rat-a-tat-tat of its wings tapping out ‘YOU ARE A MONSTER’ in Morse code.

All I want to do is open up the jar and set it free, but no, there is no escape for the poor desperate creature. It is doomed to beat its wings in futility. And I am doomed to listen to it.

“The video on the internet didn’t have any sound!” And he’s right, all the videos I saw just had soothing music and pictures of the jar on a kitchen counter, bathed in light, beside a bowl of apples and a copy of whatever Oprah’s book club pick is that week. There’s no way to know from that that it’s not restful, it’s actively stressful.

“I thought it could be something you could have on your desk at work, and it would be pretty and… and…”

I could not stop laughing. “This may be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.” I told my husband. And because we are who we are, we both laughed until we could scarcely breathe. This was both the best and the worst gift I think I’ve ever received.

Fortunately, my daughter likes it. Unlike me, she clearly does not perceive its movements as a dance of death. So she can have it. I will just stay far, far away from her room when it’s on.