If Only The Mantis Had Stayed Away...

 There's something you can't see in this photo. Just behind that rise on the garbage can handle is a praying mantis...a big old white one. You know the ones. They're so big they're like ancient monoliths that watch life from a distance having already lived a long life.

And, they kind of freak me out. 

I moved the garbage can and saw it stir. Nope...not going to move the garbage can with that thing hanging out on it. So, I picked up a broom and shooed him away. He landed on the driveway and scampered under my son's car.

Great, I thought. Now I can move the garbage can away from the car and to add more trash and that's what I did. I turned, picked up the trash, opened the lid and dropped it in. When I closed the lid that's when I saw it...the carcass of the praying mantis smushed on the driveway. It wasn't there before. I apparently rolled the garbage can over its insect body. 

At first I wondered if it was another mantis that I didn't see that met a grizzly end, and that's still possible, but the size and color matched the one I tried to save. I don't understand it. I can't see why it would be that attached to the garbage can, but it looks like as soon as it went under the car, it came back and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Poor fella (or, lady fella...). If only it had stayed away.