(Santa Fe, NM) Good evening. I come to you today a man disgraced. I keep reaching for the stars and each time I don’t land on the clouds, no, I fall to the dirt. In the dirt, where I now feel at home, is where I have met many bug friends. These bug friends treat me as their own and have taught me their ways. Secrets have been exchanged, but it wasn’t until lately that they unveiled something to me about themselves that I never knew: all bugs want is to be eaten. In their eyes, a fulfilled life ends in being eaten. It is with this preface that I will tell you the story of 4 times I was kicked out of the Santa Fe bug museum for trying to eat all of the bugs.

The first time, it was an honest mistake. Trust me. You see, I had never seen so many bugs in one place in my life. Bugs had always kind of been a random occurrence in my life, not something I saw en mass, so I kind of went a little crazy. As we entered the bug museum, I knew I was in trouble. Everywhere I looked, the bugs looked so delicious. I really can’t explain it. I had made my way through three rolly pollies and a cricket before I was quickly escorted from the premises. Thankfully, those fools at the museum didn’t press charges, so I was free to launch a second attempt.

This second time, I wasn’t fooling around. I came to the museum specifically to eat bugs. I wore a dark hoodie and came in just before close. I made myself comfortable in the bathroom and waited for 3-6 hours, I’m not exactly sure how long it was actually, I kind of lost my sense of time in there. Eventually, I came out of the bathroom and headed straight for the lady bugs, the tastiest of bugs I had heard. I was munching away when I was tasered by a security guard. This time, they did press charges.

Now that the ‘law’ was involved, I had to get more creative. Attempt three was our first and only heist, but I still reflect fondly on it. At 2:02 AM I cut power to the small area of the museum where the security system was set up. I had my friends lower me down through the ventilation system and I almost made it to the crunchy boys I was looking for when the rope snapped. The blue prints had unfortunately failed to mention this fan and so I ended up shattering my leg bones in multiple places and was put in a jail hospital where I served my sentence on a lot of morphine. Not a terrible experience overall.

Finally, attempt four, the big bamboozle. Obviously they were ready for me by this point. I should have realized that earlier. It’s not even worth describing, honestly, it was pretty tragic and ended quickly. Lowest bug eaten count so far.

Which is why I will not stop. Yes, I may have made 4 attempts, but I wouldn’t consider any of them successful. I must be successful,

See you again soon, Santa Fe Bug Museum. See you very soon.

This was written by Nathan Ellwood, who hopes you had a nice first day of worm year. Follow him @NPEllwood.