A Few Choice Words

It's been something of a critter-ful day.

In addition to the usual pesky mosquito or two (of which there are two less than there were this morning), we had a high-volume birds' committee meeting convened just outside the window, a quick Google to make sure that this:


is not, in fact, a coral snake (it's not), and a consequent discussion regarding preferred methods of scorpion disposal, complete with visual aids.

Then on the way home I saw a guy I've seen before. There's this stretch of road between a traffic circle and a busy intersection where people hang out and sell stuff to the idling drivers.

There's the newspaper lady (mornings only), the sunglasses ladies (any time), the coconut water man (once in a while), the cell phone charger guys, and the random-stuff-of-the-week man (currently wooden alligators, cartoon window decals and somewhat ratty peacock feathers).

And then there's the grass grasshopper guy. I've seen him before, but never really paid much attention. But when I saw him walking from the greenery in the center of the traffic circle back down the road with a double handful of palm fronds tucked under his arm, I recognized him.

And it just so happened that he was all the way up to the traffic light by the time I got there a few minutes later. And, being second in line for the light, I stopped right in front of him. So I asked how much he sold them for.

Got a big smile, a nice compliment and the answer, "whatever you'd care to give me."

So I gave him 500 colones (about a dollar) in exchange for my very own grass grasshopper.




Art. For the sake of it. Awesome.