My Time at the Audubon Insectarium by Z. Collins

My Time at the  Audubon      Insectarium

By Z. Collins

    I live in New Orleans and I've lived all my life in this well known city. It has plenty of fascinating and wondrous exhibits. The Audubon zoo,  aquarium, and the insectarium are my favorite museums in my city. Even though they have exhibits full of living creatures, I think that that it is very astounding to see.

   Four years ago, when I was in the third grade I had went to the Audubon Insectarium. It was my first and only time going to the Insectarium.Before I went there, I use to love learning about bugs and insects. I wasn't the type of person that was obsessed with insects to the point that I would want to become an entomologist (a scientist that studies insects.) I just read books about them and did research. Today I know bugs such as conenose bugs(also known as vampire bugs, assassin bugs, or kissing bugs), German cockroaches, American cockroaches, Spider species, and et cetera bug species are the most dangerous bugs to encounter.  

   Anyways, I forgot somethings and I forgot the order in the steps of which places that we went to in order but I will try to see what I remembered.

Entrance

   So, once we've gotten off the bus we lined up. I forgot how the chaperone groups were organized  but I did remember that I was with my homeroom teacher Mrs. Wooten. Mrs. Wooten was also my math teacher and she was very strict whenever it came to punishing a child. 

   After we lined up, we walked into the Insectarium. I also believe that we had to go with tickets and there were very long.  Mrs. Wooten and a few other chaperones tore the tickets and gave one to each of us. We walked through the security checks. There were about three T.V.s and one of them showed a chef baking something. "What is he baking?" I asked. "I think it's a grasshopper cake,"a friend of mine said. Then another friends said, "Wait no, those are crickets like the ones that Ms. Tilly had!" Then Ms. Wooten whispered, "David, be a quiet, we are in a public place." Another person said, "Oh yeah those are crickets." Then I reminded myself about kindergarten. 

   In kindergarten there was a teacher named Ms. Tilly and we had two pet toads as class pets and she would feed them crickets. I pointed at the T.V. and and said, "Mrs. Wooten, look at that." She looked and said disgustingly, "Ew yuck, what is that?" We all realized that wasn't grasshopper cake or cricket cake, it was cricket cake. It might've been called something else but that was what we called it for the rest of the day. The chef started eating it. I think Mrs. Wooten might've even covered her face with her hands it seems like it was healthy to me.

Madagascar Roach

   After we went through the security check, we walked straight I believe. We saw a woman with a giant roach that had a black head and a orange back in the palm. It wasn't my first time seeing it because I remember seeing them at school. I remember seeing them in after care. Whenever school used to be over I would go home by bus or carpool because my parents would come home from work extremely late so I had to stay at school in the after school program and my parents would have to pick me up from school before it was too late. Usually during after care, we would stay in the 8th and 7th grade classrooms. 

   At that time, there was a 8th grade teacher named Ms. Cow and we would usually stay in her classroom. She was the science teacher and she had two Madagascar roaches in a glass tank without water with a few plants. They weren't too big. They were medium sized. It did seem like they weren't in a good habitat because they used to always try to escape. I knew hat they were called Madagascar roaches because I saw a piece of paper on the outside of the tank tank that said, "Madagascar Roaches."

  The woman with the roach in her hand was offering us to pet it. A few other people were petting it but it was creeping me out. It's whiskers were moving and it was huge with a blag. It's hard to tell if it has a mouth and you never know if it bites or not. Other people were petting it but I don't remember if I petted it or not.

Jumping Bugs!

   After that, we went through a tunnel. I was scared to go in. A few other people went into the tunnel. I don't remember but either spiders jumped out of the wall or there was scary noise but for the most part I believe that there were Spiders jumping out of the wall. "Is it scary in that tunnel?" I asked. "No, I've been here before," a friend of mine said as black Spider jumped out of the wall inside of the tunnel. "Come inside, I'm with you," Mrs. Wooten said. I walked into the tunnel. "Look at that mom," a friend of mine said as she pointed at the wall. A spider jumped out of the wall and she jumped back as her mom caught her. I walked through the tunnel without a spider jumping at me.

Bug Awards

   I was told that there was a butterfly exhibit but it was closed on that day that I went.  We waited a very long time to get into the next exhibit. Mrs. Wooten told me that we were waiting on a movie. Luckily, there was stuff for us to do but we were impatient and exhausted. We climbed bug models like the grass hopper and I believe the preying mantis also. 

   After all the waiting we went into a theater place. It had purple seats and everything else in the theater was brown, we were given orange and purple glasses. Once the screen commenced to play, there was a stick bug and a stink bug on the screen. 

   I believe they said, "Welcome to the bug awards." They gave out random awards to random bugs. I forgot the name of each award and which bugs won them but I do think that the army ants might've won a award. Every time a award was announced, the seats vibrated and everyone was jumping. Each time it happened Mrs. Wooten said, "I don't see how you're not used to this."

   At the end, the stink bug farted and the theater smelled like fart. It didn't smell too bad though. Mrs. Wooten commenced to  cough and she blew the stench out of her face. one year later, I went to Disney World and the same thing happened for the "A Bug's Life" movie.

I Ate a Bug

   Once we got out of the theater, we did other nice things at other bug exhibits. The only other thing that I remembered was going to a exhibit to see the habitat of bees and hornets. 

  After that, we went to a cafe to eat lunch. There were pictures on the walls with people from different countries eating insects. They were particularly from Asia.  The only one that I remember was Mandarin woman in a blue shirt ate a spider on a stick. That was disgusting because I thought that spiders were poisonous. 

   At first I was brave then I felt a little bit nervous. I heard other people talking about how they ate a bug. I asked Ms. Wooten, "Are you going to eat a bug?" Then she said, "No, that's fine you should go try eating one." Then I went in line. There was a man with chef shirt on. I believed he said,"hey there, these are fried crickets. " . He guided me through the cricket eating process. He gave me a cricket and a chip and I dipped the chip and cricket to together I slowly ate it. It smelled like fart and it  was hot in my mouth. I just kept on going anyway. He gave me two more crickets with three more chips and chip dips. 

   Then he gave me earth worms and did the same thing that he did with the crickets. On the second chip dip it was guacamole. "I'm going to throw up," I told myself. At the end, he gave me a stamp on my hand that said, "I Ate a Bug." Then I believe I ordered Nachos from the stand and went back to Mrs. Wooten's table. The table was covered in glass at the top and beetles were inside them. I ate anyway.

   After school, my mom picked me up and stopped at the gas station before we went home. I told her about everything about the Insectarium at the gas station. She gave my brother and I praline candy as she was pumping gas into the car. She was grossed out that I ate bugs and she was grossed out about the table with the beetles in them.

  Once my dad got home, I told him abut me eating bugs while he was cooking pasta and corn. he felt grossed just like my mom did. It was quite fun being at the Insectarium. I wish I can go back so I can have a clue about what actually happened when I was in third grade and so I can remember. Now I know a lot about some bugs. 

   At the time that I ate the worms I didn't understand why it was in the Insectarium if it wasn't a bug. Then a few years later I learned that meal worms hatch into beetles but even though it wasn't a meal worm it still can be considered a bug. In my definition, I consider a bug as any living creature that plays or live in the dirt. It doesn't have to have legs but we all learn something different every day.