Greengoolust

The biggest impediment to my garden glory other than charcoal-thumbed incompetence has been a caterpillar.

The hornworm.

Hornworms are green and ravenous on their way to becoming moths. They appear first as toothpick-thin cuties about three-eighths of an inch long.

Don’t be fooled. They’re as cute as the shark from “Jaws.” They chew through tomato and pepper plants and grow as long and plump as your index finger.

Every year, their marauding turns me into a creature I don’t recognize: the hornworm hunter. I spot ’em, I grab ’em, I kill ’em.

One year, I notched my kills like an Ol’ West gunslinger. I stopped counting around 70.

This year? No hornworms. None.

It’s mid-August. Hornworms should have gnawed me into submission. They haven’t even shown up to fight.

I know I should be pleased. Yet, perversely, I feel sad.

I don’t miss them, exactly. I miss the hunt and the tweak of satisfaction that accompanies each kill.

How did I become that guy, that safari gardener, that … assassin?

Ick. I don’t like this me who fidgets with unsated greengoolust.

NOTE: I wrote today’s essay Tuesday morning for publication Thursday. Just five minutes ago, at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday, I found a hornworm on a tomato plant – in time to blow the essay’s premise. The hornworms won again, although this hornworm did not. Equilibrium has been restored to the garden.