Skip to my Lou, my darlin'

Would it bug you to have insects in your sugar shaker?

(Also. This has nothing to do with collecting dead bugs for the office - which, let's be clear, I never actually did.)

So, the sugar. Plastic ones, I mean. Not real live or even dead ones. Because that would just be obviously gross, and who wouldn't be bothered by that?

Now that I say that, I realize that there are cultures that do eat beetles and crickets and such. Plus there are the maggot and mite cheeses.

And actually, if you have ever eaten insects, I'd love to hear about it. But for all of you who have not, who might not be all, ooh, ants! Tasty! Would it bother you?

Because, here's the thing. We've always had plastic insects around the house. Betty is fond of them. If you came to stay at their house, you might find a rubber cockroach on your pillow, or a plastic cricket in your napkin.

So when she realized that her plastic ants were just the right size to live in the sugar shaker and not fall through the hole in the top, they went directly in. And when I saw a package of plastic flies, I knew just who to buy them for.

And then she moved in with her sugar shakers, and now her bugs are our bugs.

Nick, however, is not so much on the bugs.

This past weekend he cleaned the shaker, washed the bugs, and set them aside. "The joke has been played," he said. "Can we now get rid of the bugs?"

Now, every once in a while someone notices them and jumps. When Kelli was in town for our high school reunion, she walked over to me holding the sugar.

"I know I'm drunk, but am I hallucinating? Are there tiny little spiders in here?"

By now, they are kind of like decoration. When someone is surprised by them, it's a bonus, but that's not what it's about. I like them. Nick, he does not.

But I mean, really. What's the bug deal?