My blog is becoming more popular…with my family, that is!
“Mom, you’ve got to write about this.” So I am.

Last week, after an unusally hectic couple of days…days where I was pulled in many opposing directions simultaneously (I call it “splayed”), our whole family piled into the car for an early evening outing. It felt almost delicious after a hot and busy day to just sit in the car and enjoy the cool evening breezes and the last vestiges of the sunset as we drove along. Technically it was AFTER the sunset, in that leftover “bluing” of the sky before the darkness overtakes it. It was lovely. And it felt lovely to drive with our car windows down for a bit. We didn’t have to be anywhere in a hurry and…”Eeeeeeeek!”

“Wap! Wap!” as my daughters hit at something in the backseat of the car.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” More screaming.
“Wap! Wap!”
Using a jacket, they were attacking something…something that flew.
More screaming insued. Then a lifting of the jacket…and a large flying insect became airborne. It was a large 5-6 inch green dragonfly; it was loose in the car; and it was disoriented.

Then commenced a time of screaming, ducking, “wapping” and mild hysteria as my daughters tried to shoo, direct, flick and push the dragonfly to an open window. It wasn’t working. This significantly sized insect was determined to exit through the back window behind the girls heads. Only thing is, there is no exit at the back window. So the girls tried to scoop him away from the back over to a side window: all the time using the jacket as a prod so they wouldn’t have to touch this menacing creature. (Really they do look quite fearsome!)

Each time they scooped and flicked and pushed, there would be a few moments of free flight for the dragonfly until it found the rear window once again. My husband was trying drive the car in traffic during all this; I suddenly realized the danger we were in if this flying insect flew to the front of the cabin. This dragonfly was big, and in addition to the “ewwwwwwww!” factor, it posed a real driving hazard if it happened to buzz the driver. So the rising excitement spread from back to front seats as I tried to intercept any erratic flight before it came to the front. My husband carefully navigated off the main boulevard while the girls continued to screech and scream and swat at the dragonfly.

It was an an older, low rent residential area that we were able to park in and turn off the car. We all jumped out of the car to the wide-eyed amazement of a young boy on the other side of an iron-barred gate. He watched with wonder and perplexity as all four of us jumped out, and with many vocalizations darted toward the car and then away: sometimes peering intently at this large beautifully-made insect trapped at the base of the rear window, and sometimes banging and beating on the window to dislodge the confused insect. I’m sure we really did look a sight. We were all animated and excited, exclaiming and shouting, each according to our particular bents: commanding the insect to exit, declaring how ugly and awful it was, pointing out the beauty of its wings and the hugeness of its eyes,…all the while my husband trying to calm the troops and implement a plan to release the dragonfly. In the end we were able to shoo it from the car; the insect was very disoriented; but as soon as it realized its freedom, it flew away. It was a lovely evening.

*Update: I have been updated by one of my daughters that they were NOT “wapping” the dragonfly with the jacket; they were using the jacket to hide themselves from the dragonfly. There was a lot of flailing going on in the backseat; I stand corrected.