step right up

the morning started out with fat rain crashing down all over everything and me trying to get my rainbooted self to the train station by the park without getting anything drenched. student papers. my packet of oatmeal. four boxes of mealworms and four boxes of crickets in flavors usually reserved for potato chips. i wasn't so worried about the two cricket lollipops, one blueberry and one raspberry, crammed somewhere in my bag. by the time i came up out of underground the rain had turned to snow, even fatter than the rain, too wet to stick and be real on the ground but extra fancy in the sky because it took up all the space up there. i had promised one of my girls she could do her extra credit garden project this morning and when i hauled my wet-wool covered self up to the fourth floor, she was sprawled out in front of the door with a few other girls, waiting. i was two minutes late.

while she got to work making a pot out of newspaper and trying to decide whether to plant a cactus or some lemon cucumber or maybe some fractal-y romanesco broccoli, i spread out plates and napkins on the table. the other girls swirled around, smelling the potting soil, which they insisted smelled horrible, then smelling it again just for the scariness, i guess. i put a packet of bugs on each plate, mexican spice mealworms, pink cricket lollipop, bacon cheddar crickets, blue cricket lollipop, cheese mealworms. other kids arrived.

when the bell rang we worked on regular business- reading, arguing, threatening, more reading and then some writing. we discussed grades and while i answered questions i reached down to the cricket plate and picked one up the way you do popcorn from a bowl, without really thinking about it. crunch. and so we started.

every year we ease into nonfiction with a few essays on bugs because teenagers think bugs are disgusting and if they're going to read, they want to read about horrible suffering or something disgusting. we read about cockroaches. then we read about edible bugs, about how folks in most other countries cook and eat a variety of insects because they are plentiful, tasty and healthy. and every year, with the help of a very elaborate and carefully worded permission slip, a few brave souls stand up in front of their peers and eat bugs. before we eat, i ask them to get out paper and a pen. i explain that when we're finished, they'll be expected to reflect. to write what they see and how they feel about it. and they did. so i'll let you hear what they had to say in their own unusual words.

from the audience:
this is just the worst experience i will never ever have it.

my insane teacher just ate bugs not 1 bug not 2 bugs alot of bugs.

i thought that maybe the crickets and bugs still had there blood so i thought they were drinking the blood to.

one boy only ate them without saying a word.

to me i think it was grose and bad because i was hering the bugs crack on peoples mouth.

i was thinking i should have stayed home.

i just discovered the most discusting thing ever!

i felt as if i was dreaming or in a other world, where eating bugs is an everyday thing. at first i was kind of grossed out i could not belive my eye but soon after i saw some of my class mates eating them i thought to myself maybe is not that bad and at one point i even thought of trying it. next time if she brings bug i promised myself that i would try it and also try to like it.

i have experinize hell. it was so nasty to see that boy stuffing 5 worms in his mouth... the crunching sound was so nasty i thought i was going to die... i am so grossed out i am going to have dreams about people stuffing those worms right into there mouth. i couldn't stand it when that boy was holding it right above his mouth and it slide right into his teeth.

just the thought of eating bugs freaked me out because it's something out of the ordinary.

i saw my classmates eat bugs that were dead. it was very disturbing... it was crazy that nobody threw up.

today i watched six pieople eat a bunch of crickets and meal worms it was very nasty but interesting. as they were eating it you heard it chrunch in there mouth.

that is horroring of fear.

i seen that the kids were scared to eat the bugs and then after they ate it, they really loved it.

what i did was sit in the audience. we sat there and watched six kids eat bugs. they sounded very crunchy.

when the students was eating it i thought i was dreaming and i thought these students were crazy in the brain. i was about to take my phone out and call 911 to check if these students had something wrong with their brain.

from those who ate:
i ate as many bugs as i can like there's no tomorrow. i didn't fear at all since they're dead.

well, i know not to eat anymore worms or anything with legs, but i had a good time doing it in front of my friend and having good laughs.

i was scared because i never ate a cricks before till today. it was okay. i mean it was not bad... i thought i was going to throw up. but i didn't. so i was happy about that. the legs got stuck on my teeth so i had to drink something.

my mind was so crazy and out of control. when she called my name a whole bunch of questions was going through my head...then she told us to pick up a mealworm i was like oh no. but i pick it up... so shackey (in my head). pop the mealworum in my mouth it taste ok but i was gross out... all i have to say is it was an exprience.

when i was first up there i was so nervous. but when i ate the worm it was like chips. i was not afraid of eating them anymore. they started to taste good. the crikets were the ones that i was afraid to eat because they were very creepy looking and looked like they were alive. but i ate it anyway... everyone else that was eating the bugs was about to go crazy. but after a while every one started to calm down and wasn't creeped out about us eating bugs.

i'm shocked i even ate a bug...i'm never gonna do it again, but at least i had the guts to do it. everyone looked at us like we were nasty but, they couldn't even do it... this was a good experience to have with people you are cool with.

when i went for the critit i was just like ooo-myyy-goood! the looked realy big and yellow. i was realy nerviors. but when i tast the crits they were realy good. the only thing was i felt the feet and there anteners.

i came back from the bathroom and they were all around the table getting ready to eat it. i must say i really didn't think i would eat that stuff. then i hear them start telling me to do it and i'm like shit. so when i get here i say the bugs holy shit i wanted to throw up. i felt sick to my stomach. i wanted other people to do it before me so i can see there reactions and tell me how it taste. at this point of time i didn't care if it taste good i didn't want to be the guy who ate bugs in our class room. then i said i didn't care what people think what won't kill me will make me stronger. so i ate the meal worms and to be really honest they weren't that bad beside the feet. there bugs. if it was up to me i would never do that crap again.

allthough my parnets are discuted from it but they agreed at last and i got my chance to taste them in class it was a really great but disgusting thing to do.

what i seen when i was up there getting ready to eat the bugs i seen people getting nervous and shaking when they were shaking the table was moving and the bugs were shaking. it got me even more nervous and scared, but when i final said to myself just go for it and eat it i did. when i tryed the meal worm it wasent that bad. just like she said it taste like patato chips. then after that i had about five more. i would recomend any one to try it, unless you are alergic. i wanted to try the cricket but i didn't like the legs and wings on it. i am really glad that i tried it, because it was a fun experience and now i can tell all of my friends and family that i tryed a bug. when i get the picture i want to show my family and friends that i did it.

and this, of course, is when i love them most. when they are discombobulated. not because i want them to be afraid, but because that's when they think most elegantly. when they are off balance. and not just thinking about themselves but about each other. because when they are edgy like this, nervous and unsure, they have to reach out. that little group of six children standing up there at the front of the room was able to do something scary because they looked around and saw not brave faces, but five faces just like theirs staring back at them, unsure, fearful. and i guess that's what lets us sometimes be brave, probably, just knowing that whatever terror you face, you walk toward it with someone else's trembling hand clutched in your own.