The Death Water

Some months ago my brother Dave and I were reminiscing about our childhood. Among the memories we discussed was one that is quite shameful. In this memory we both agreed that we were very comparable to Sid from the movie Toy Story. One day when we were kids we decided that we wanted to play scientist/inventors. So we put all of Dave's toys GI Joes, Hemans, cars, helicopters etc. at the bottom of his bunkbed and covered them with a blanket. Then we climbed to the top of the bunkbed and jumped off of the top bunk onto the toys below breaking some of them (sorry Mom if you are reading this). And then we found creative ways to put them back together. Terrible I know. But unlike Sid we were not evil or mean as we did this, it was all innocent I assure you. Well, the last few days I have wondered if we don't have a bit of a Sid living amongst us here in our house. None of my children torture their toys. But we have had some runins with "bug" torture. My kids are intrigued by bugs . . . spiders etc., and are not very scared of them. There has been a few times that Ada has come to me telling me that there is a spider somewhere in the house and politely asks me if she can take a shoe and kill it. Pretty brave for a three year old girl. Once when I lived at home it took me 2 hours to kill a spider in my room . . . and I was eighteen at the time.
Anyway, a swift killing of a spider is nothing to worry about. But everytime there has been an opportunity to kill a spider or an insect lately Drew will say, "No Mom! Don't kill it!" The first time he said this I thought, "Oh how sweet. He doesn't want the poor little creature to die." But then he followed by saying, "Don't kill it. I want to go put it in the 'Death Water'". I have since learned that the "Death Water" is a bucket of water in the backyard that we put under the hose spicket. I don't know how many insects/spiders have met their demise in the "Death Water" by Drew, but I'm thinking more than one.
I've killed plenty of spiders in my time, but I've always been humane. I'm just hoping that Drew, like Dave and I, has had no intended "Sid like" behavior while doing this. But just in case . . . we read a great book yesterday by Roald Dahl called the "Magic Finger." In the story there is a little girl who has a magic finger which she can't control. When she gets angry at someone her magic finger goes crazy and strange things happen. Well she hates that her neighbors love to hunt and kill animals. One day they shot a bunch of birds and ducks and she got so angry that her magic finger went to work. Unbeknownst to her while she was sleeping these neighbors transformed into Ducks while the family of the Ducks they had slaughtered became human sized. The Ducks moved into their home while they had to make do building a nest and sleeping outside in the tree etc. When they awoke they were faced with four ducks below them with guns pointing up at them in the air. The Gregg family had a change of heart, and got rid of their guns and vowed never to kill another bird. It was a really funny book, but I think it is going to be a great reference book for when Drew has these torturous tendencies! :) Of course suddenly I am recalling an incident when I was a child involving worms, plastic knives and playing surgeons/doctors . . . I had forgotten about that. We turned out alright I guess. Maybe I shouldn't worry too much about the "Death Water."