FM,

You got such a kick out of it, I wanted to give you an update: Being buried up to our armpits in snow today, I don't want to venture out to "the wormie store" which is probably closed anyway. Beloved Chinese WaterDragon, Jim wants his breakfast and soooooooooo...

(drumroll please) It's time to crack open the CAN 'O CRICKET!

Popping the top, which has a handy plastic cover for storage, what greets me is a virtual cricket cemetary: A pile of jumbos neatly "cooked in the can" as advertised, legs and all, YEEEETCH.

Moment of suspense ensues: WILL HE EAT IT?

Plopped down a specimen in front of my hungry boy which immediately produced that familiar headcock and gleam in his eye that preceeds a pounce and a gobble. ...BUT WAIT!!! that sucker isn't moving! He stepped a full pace back with a visable hurrrrrumpf and assumed an air of "Nice try, but no cigar hu-mon slave."

I tied the little body to a sting in order to pull it around, (this never fails on other dead things like fruit), hell, he'll even chase that sting around empty! (He has cat-like qualities.) Jim's deliberate refusal to even acknowlege the jerking sting while staring icily in space pretty well summed it up: "I recogize that darn thing on the string as something I just rejected, sheeze, I wasn't born yesterday!"

Relocating him and the food for reasons known only to lizards, works on occasion. I placed him and the cricket-corpse on the back of the sofa and tossed on the last of a refrigerated (tho' alive) meal worm. He slurped up the meal worm, knowing from experience that it will start moving when it warms up so why wait and WHOOPS by accident got the cricket too.....BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It stayed down but he was loathe to consume the next two quickly offered. "Fool me once, shame on you, etc." So now I have a whole open can and a bunch of back-up cans 'o cricket. Unless I can figure out how to put a tiny motor on these things they may well be headed for the loser-lizard food bank after all.

(((or how about the HU-MON food bank))) BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- oops, I didn't say that.

Charli

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 26, 2000

Answers

Could the crickets be used for fish bait? How about Jim?

-- justme (justme@myhouse.com), January 26, 2000.

Jim smiles as he leaves a big poo on justme's lap.

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 26, 2000.

With 6 kids, 2 grandkids and 6 dogs....it wouldn't be the first time:)

-- justme (justme@myhouse.com), January 26, 2000.

justme, Jim says he's sorry.

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 26, 2000.

Tell Jim is ok. He can leave poop anytime.

-- justme (justme@myhouse.com), January 26, 2000.

Charli,

Jim's attitude reminds me a bit of what I might have been faced with had "Infomagic" been right.

In my case, however, it would have been a small "hoo-man" rather than a Chinese Water Dragon.

I can faintly hear the words now, in the back of my imagination, as I crack open a can of Hormel corned beef: "M-o-m-m-m-m, that's DISGUSTING!"

Thank heaven it didn't come to that!

:)

P.S. Did you try telling Jim that thousands of WaterDragons in China are starving and would appreciate the contents of "CAN-'O-ANYTHING?" (On second thought, forget it. Now that I think of it, this technique didn't work for my grandmother, either. My mother always used to wonder how finishing her apple would help kids in China...)

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Jim says that the starving WaterDragons in China just don't know how to CoMmUniCaTE!

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 27, 2000.

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 27, 2000.

trying again...

claypool@belatlantic.net), January 27, 2000.

*

http://members.tripod.com/Charli/04a06500.gif

-- JIM (worm_meister@htmlnoworkie.ugh), January 27, 2000.

LOL, Charli!

How DID you teach that lizard to TYPE?!?!!? In CURSIVE, no less!?!?!

Jim sez "Blech!" to "CAN 'O CRICKET!"

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Thanks for the link, FM

Sorry, just couldn't get that html to work right.

He channel surfs too.

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 27, 2000.

Charli, Jim is too cute!

-- justme (justme@myhouse.com), January 27, 2000.