Safe Sex

I became a matchmaker today. I found the perfect boyfriend for my lovely lady praying mantis.

When I saw him standing near the back door, waving his antennae, I knew he was looking for romance. Though his was a face only a mother could love (from what I've seen, mantis mothers would view their offspring as objects of lunch rather than affection), I could tell instantly he was sincere.

So I dropped a Kleenex over him and carried him in to meet his blind date.

Understanding how tempestuous female mantids can be, I dropped a few crickets into the plastic bug box to distract her before introducing her soon to be true love.

He immediately realized that he was in the presence of a goddess and made a swift retreat to the far corner of the bug box to spy out the lie of the land.

This was not a dumb male.

Eventually he sidled up to her from the rear, tap, tap, tapping a semaphore with his long antennae. When she turned her triangular head to look at a particularly lively cricket, he dove quickly between her wing and her abdomen. He clutched her wing margin with his foreleg and kept his head buried beneath it until overcome by love.

Lady mantises, you see, when in the arms of love, have a disconcerting habit of chewing their sweetie's head off.

When a male praying mantis says, "Love hurts," he ain't kidding.