Anobium Punctatum

May 6th, 2010. Wood-boring beetles spend most of their life cycle in the larval stage. The egg is laid by the female beetle in a small opening in the wood, where it feeds on the starch and moisture within the wood as it tunnels its way randomly beneath the surface for years until it is ready to pupate. The damage done to the wood goes mostly unnoticed until the beetle emerges.
    Coming into my view was Ulysses Elmore. Except, Ulysses Elmore wasn't his real name. He lived behind the Daddy Rabbit Liquor Basket. And everybody called him Darger.
   "Where's my mitten, Mightyman?" said Darger. I think. He had tinfoil wrapped around his arms and hands and he was talking like a machine. 
   "They won't let you in the stadium dressed like that, you stupid idiot. You aren't going like that!" I said.
   The boy's eyes grew wide, and rather creepy. He lifted his arms slowly, like a robot, and then said something again with the machine voice, "My buddies and I prefer a more explorative method of transportation. Travel with me, Starman?" But, because Darger is mentally retarded, I don't have a clue as to what he really said.  
   "Stop talking like that! And take off that good tinfoil, stupid!" I blasted. If Karen knew he had come anywhere near anything in the kitchen she would really let me have it. And here he was wrapped-up like a big space mummy in her good tinfoil! I prodded on, "I'm hungry! Let's go. We'll eat on the way. Roll that foil back on the roll, dummy! Roll, Dummy! Roll! Ha-Ha!" 
    We spent nearly four hours on the hillside, listening to the gun blasts and rockets. At last! We witnessed the grand heroics of No.16 when he launched a last-minute, pedestrian raid to repel the stubborn militiamen from Milwaukee. There will be a funeral tomorrow, for sure. Then Darger told me that his teeth hurt. When I looked into his mouth, I found that he had been chewing on a piece of the tinfoil and his gums were all bloodied. "Dammit!" I muttered, and we went home. W is for Walk off.