The Food Chain

While Sam and I were outside playing with bubbles this afternoon, he spotted a bug trapped in a spider web.

"Oh no!" he said. "The nice bug is going to get eaten by the mean spider! Help him, Mrs. Allison! Heeeeeelp hiiiiiim!"

I saw enough bugs on the Appalachian Trail two weeks ago to last me a lifetime (and still have the bites to prove it). I was really okay with letting the pest be eaten by the spider. Since I had no intention of rescuing the bug from its inevitable fate, I seized the opportunity to teach Sam a little bit about the food chain.

"Have you ever heard of the food chain?" I asked Sam. "Yep," he replied. "Daddy taught me about it. It's a big chain of food."

Hmmm.

"Well..." I said. "The food chain is when, say, a spider eats a bug...and then a bird eats the spider...and so on. So now it's your turn. What animal eats birds?" I asked.

"A cat!" he exclaimed, happy to be understanding my little game.

"Right!" I said. "And what eats cats?"

"Hmmm...(tapping his chin with his pointer finger)...A DOG!" he said, proud of himself.

"Well..." I said, thinking about my cute, cuddly, orange tabby back at home.

"Wait!" he said. "Dogs don't eat cats. They just chase them!"

I liked that answer better.

"Ok, let's try another one," I prompted. "What animal eats grass?"

"A cow!" he said.

"And what eats cows?" I continued.

Sam had a genuinely confused look on his face...like he couldn't imagine what animal would eat a grass-eating, milk-giving, moo-ing cow.

"I don't know," he said.

"People eat cows," I said, unsure of whether I should have started this little "food chain" conversation.

"People eat cows?" Sam said in disbelief.

"Yep. You know those yummy hamburgers that Daddy makes on the grill? That's meat from a cow," I explained.

"Oh," he said solemnly. "Well, I guess that's the end of him, huh, Mrs. Allison?"

Hmmmm. Maybe I should have just saved the stupid bug...