GOLDEN LADYBUG

I was walking into my bedroom when a speck of something golden caught my eye. It was right in the middle of my white closet door and it looked exactly like a drop of gold. I reached out to touch it when it suddenly took flight, circled around the room and landed up on the crown molding. I have to admit I was not only impressed, but surprised too. How often do you get to see a drop of gold fly?

I decided I needed to take a better look. I dragged a chair over and looked up to see the sun reflecting off the little creature. It's sparkle was beautiful. I climbed up on the chair and struggled to focus in on the little guy. I soon realized that my age was showing and I was going to need my reading glasses to really be able to see him. I climbed off the wobbly chair, ran to my bedside table, grabbed my glasses and climbed back up.

I came to the conclusion that he must be some type of fantastic mutant ladybug when my son Alex walked by and saw me standing on the chair, my cheek pressed against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I looked down at him. “I'm looking at the most beautiful golden ladybug.” I said.

Alex looked up at the ceiling. “Where?”

I looked back up and saw it was gone. “It was right there!” I pointed to the now empty spot. “I took my eyes off of him for one second and now he's gone!” I held onto the back of the chair, my reading glasses propped on the tip of my nose, and scanned around the room.

“Do you need help getting down?” Alex held my hand as I climbed down.

“Do you see him?” I asked as I walked around the room, pulling back the drapes and checking my bedspread.

“Don't worry, I'm sure he'll come back.” Alex said. He sounded like I'd just told him I'd cornered a leprechaun that had magically disappeared.

“I'm serious!” I said. “I'll prove I'm not nuts! I'm going to look him up on the Internet!”

“Okay, you have fun doing that.” Alex said as he disappeared into him room.

I went to my computer and typed in golden ladybug. Sure enough, there it was. It turns out that it's really called a milkweed tortoise beetle, but there were a few Web sites dedicated to this gorgeous creature.

“I'm not crazy!” I called out to Alex. “Do you want to come see what a golden tortoise beetle looks like?”

“I already saw him in your room.” he called back.

“You did not!” I yelled. “He flew away before you could see him!”

“That's okay, I believe you.”

“You do not!” I got up to search my bedroom again. As I scanned the ceiling I couldn't believe that ten minutes ago I was marveling at how lucky I was to see such a rare and beautiful creature.

But now, just ten minutes later, I was crawling around on my hands and knees trying to find the creepy little bug just to prove to Alex that I wasn't nuts.