The bug on my rug: Day 7

I took my son to the Maryland Renaissance festival on Sunday. Conor has been to the event five years in a row with his mother. I never went with them (preferring instead to have a day to myself). This year, though, I offered to give Cynde a break and she gladly accepted.

Conor took a friend along and I brought Karl the bug. The stress of the White Sox-Angels baseball series was taking its toll on the little guy. I figured a day away from pacing around on the carpet in the basement could only help take his mind off things. Besides, traveling back in time 500 years to the Renaissance period was just the thing for a beetle. No exterminators back then. No Roach Motels. No No Pest Strips. No insect sprays. Bugs were a part of life. Nobody got upset during the Renaissance when a bug crawled out and warmed himself by the fire. If people were hungry enough they might eat him, but otherwise bugs were pretty much left to themselves. I assured Karl that nobody was going to chow down on him in Maryland. Surely, there would be plenty of food and ale available at Ye Olde Hooters Tavern to keep folks satisfied.

I have to be honest with you here. I have always found the whole concept of dressing up in costumes and pretending to live in a different era to be more than a bit strange. For some people, life is a hopscotch of one Renaissance festival after another. Definitely, not my thing. Still, after just a few minutes at the fairgrounds, I found myself more relaxed than I have been in ages. People were laughing and having a good time. They may have been pretending to be something they weren’t, but they were happy. And why not? Combine the simpler way of life of the 15th and 16th centuries with the life expectancy and indoor plumbing of the 21st century. How can you go wrong?

We had a great time. We wandered aimlessly and enjoyed the many jugglers and acrobats and comedians and hucksters. I bought Conor a wooden sword and his friend, Derek, a magic trick. Everything was going along great until we stopped for lunch and I noticed that Karl the bug was gone. He had been up on my shoulder much of the time, ducking under my shirt collar occasionally when he was frightened by the pushed-up cleavage of a particularly well-endowed “wench.” (Who could blame him? If a bug were to fall into that black hole he might never be seen again!) As the boys munched on their Renaissance cuisine (chicken fingers and French fries), I scanned the ground for Karl. It felt hopeless. How would I ever find a beetle in this crowd? But he couldn’t have gone far. I looked and looked. Then, as if by providence, I spotted him: a little black smudge on a turkey leg in the hand of a kid at the next table. Just as I saw Karl, the kid did, too. “Ewww,” he cried, “a bug.” The kid shook the turkey leg back and forth until Karl could hang on no longer. He tumbled across the table close enough for me to grab him and stuff him into my shirt pocket (a distinctly non-Renaissance button down oxford).

Karl stayed in my pocket for the rest of the day. As the sun started to go down, we made our way out of the fairgrounds and on home. We were all dead tired from the excitement of the day. I had dinner with Karl still in my pocket. He was so quiet I forgot he was even there. Conor went to bed early dreaming of his fun Medieval day. I went down into the basement and turned on the television. The baseball game was on. The deciding game between the White Sox and the Angels. Suddenly remembering Karl, I reached into my pocket and pulled him out. I set him down on the arm of the chair so he could see. Strangely, he didn’t seem interested at all in the game, even though his favored White Sox were ahead. After a few minutes, Karl crawled down the side of the chair and walked away, disappearing into the crack in the baseboard on the wall. It was only the sixth inning of a tight match-up. The White Sox went on to win the game, and with it, a spot in the World Series. I’m not sure Karl even knows. I haven’t seen him since.