The attitude of ordinary people to entomologists

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27.03.2009 3:00, Papaver

I will occasionally throw up stories from my life...
Story # 1.
This story isn't about me. It has long been spread around the world of Russian biologists. But few people know her...
so...

More than 30 years ago, in one northern region, a young entomologist studied the soil mesofauna using all the methods available to him. And so, sitting over the soil sample on a hot summer day in a cloud of wildebeest in the pasture outside the village, he saw a middle-aged woman slowly approaching him (she had gone to drive the cow home).
When the woman approached and saw a dirty still life of scattered test tubes, stains, cans with a retainer, tweezers, a shovel and turf sprayed on polyethylene, she slowed down in bewilderment.
The entomologist had already turned his back on the woman, picking at the ground under a cowcake and firmly believing that the woman would politely pass by, but... A woman with an indifferently tired expression came in from the side to look...
The sight of ecstatic picking at a cowpan made her speechless for a while... And then she said angrily, " YOU'RE A FOOL YOURSELF! BUT WHAT'S IT LIKE!!! "

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28.03.2009 14:28, Guest

It is very difficult to write after such a master of the pen as Papaver.
It was a long time ago. He lived and worked in a remote village on assignment after the institute. The place is dead, almost a desert. In the back, there is another term in Russian villages, there was a pile of garbage interspersed with manure. There were various plants growing on this pile, such as mustard, sage, etc., but as far as I can remember now, nothing, you know, reprehensible. And here on this pile, that is, on the flowers, various butterflies were feeding en masse and I caught them there, and it did not occur to me, as a city person, that I, as a stranger, was the object of close attention from the aboriginal population.
This story would have ended in nothing, and I wouldn't have learned anything if I hadn't needed a car to move to the city after my exile ended. To do this, I took a very large amount of swill, sorry, alcohol, it was then possible to get only on coupons, and came to visit my neighbor, the chief economist of the state farm. After, I don't remember which bottle, he says to me:
"I thought you didn't drink!"
- ?????
"Well, you're a drug addict!
- ??????????????
- Well, what did you smell on your backsides!

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29.03.2009 0:16, Papaver

Many thanks to the guest for appreciating my more than modest abilities in the epistolary genre.
Although the time pressure before leaving, but good feelings for the forum members prompted me to tell another story. I don't know if you'll find it funny, but I still can't help but smile when I think of it...
Story # 2.

It happened in those already distant times, when my ex-wife was still just a wife, my father-in-law and mother - in-law were younger than I am today, and out of three children, only the first-born saw the light of day...
In the vicinity of a small town on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, my second son-in-law and I followed my father-in-law's instructions in that endless, torturous process called "building a summer cottage." Without much enthusiasm, we sawed, whittled, dragged it all up the stairs and nailed it-in the terrible heat. Well, you know that feeling when from a long stay in the Black Sea heat suddenly darkens in the eyes and cheerful colorful circles obscure you an objective picture of the world...
Meanwhile, the father-in-law and his neighbor were sitting in the shade of the neighbor's house
sipping "Anapa". I must tell you that this cinder-block building, located about 30 meters from my father - in-law's dacha, had strange acoustic properties-the speaker near it in a low voice was heard as if he was speaking in your ear. (That's when I became convinced that stories about Jesuit spy-eavesdroppers are not stories!).
Well, my second son - in-law and I are struggling with the dacha, the heat, and our own laziness, and in the shade there is a slow conversation-about this and that, business, affairs, wives, children... And then the neighbor lazily dropped: "You don't have any sons-in - law... See how they try... " The father-in-law, whose structure of the world did not imply existence, especially as his sons-in-law, athletes and biologists, took a loud sip of fortified and began to whistle, which he always did in moments of the highest irritation. When he stopped whistling, he said to his neighbor: "Both of them are jerks! One runs all the time-FA-NA-TICK! And the second-IDIOT-BA-BO-CHECK CATCHES!"
Many years have passed since then. Even my neighbor's cinder-block house, the children told me, was broken for some reason. And the dacha built by a fanatic of running and a butterfly catcher still saves the ex-father-in-law and ex-mother-in-law from the scorching sun in summer and from the bad weather of the Black Sea "in winter" ...

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31.03.2009 15:54, Guest

For a long time I thought about what topic to write it in, first I decided to go in the fishing topic in series, then still in this one, since I myself became the philistine.
Here, in one of the topics, a colleague in misfortune is encrypted, well, God is his judge, you could find many ways to open a place and not show yourself, but that's not what I'm talking about.
When I was a child, I went to a place that was not visited by anyone, and caught a very rare butterfly for our places. I'm going back and I think, to say or not to say, and I want to brag, the person is weak, pride, a mortal sin, but to say, they will come, and they will catch everything, I endured for a long time, two days, and then I couldn't stand it, and I told everything, so no one ever went there.

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02.04.2009 15:29, Guest

some reflections on what others see and don't see.
I mean, there are no beetles, or butterflies don't fly at all.
I was on a business trip, I went hunting, I caught egg yolks, and I have a male and female myrmidon next to me in the straightening machine, my partner comes to me, sees what I'm doing, and asks why you need identical ones, I say, this is the male, this is the female, he says where, I, here with spots, the female.
that is, a person does not even pay attention to what is in front of his eyes, I was surprised at first, then rewound twenty years ago, and remembered that all golubyanki for me were on the same face, as well as checkers, well, maybe it's me alone such a clinic, and now out of fifty icars sitting in a puddle, you see one tormentor.
it's just that we don't see what we don't see.

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02.04.2009 16:21, Guest

I read a few passages by Andreas about " blue(I)law enforcement officers" (sorry, I don't remember how to spell it correctly) in the area of the Caucasian mineral waters. yes, this is the topic.
In ' 99, I went on a business trip to the glorious city of Lermontov. and here, as usual, in Mineralnye vody, there is a large train parking lot, and at this time a patrol goes around the cars and checks for bombs and other things in the suitcases of citizens. they open my bag, and there are miracles, an entomological box, a net, a stain, containers and all that. What's up?" I catch it, I like it. they looked askance, went to look in my bag further. and I also have a passion for making figurines out of different types of wood, and just one of them was at the very end of the work, I was sanding it, so the fabric in which it was wrapped was stained with wood dust. and here they get this trouble, th-what? I like it, I like it. at this point, I think they were thinking the least about my mother.

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14.04.2009 6:25, Aaata

And also, from a recent relationship with non-entomological people.

I had a very successful run into the most remote place that Central Russia could only dream of: a run-down village surrounded on three sides by swamps, with a dozen half-forgotten huts. What else can an entomologist dream of? And the fact that electrification has also reached here was simply unspeakably pleasing. When it turned out that the rotting and wet wiring in the house also gives light – there was no limit to the delight!
I quickly hung up and connected my powerful light "vandals", increased the range with the help of a reflector, and directed the light towards the nearest clearing, which begins immediately behind the fence. And he looked forward with longing to his entomological paradise. And so it happened. If it wasn't for one thing that didn't fit into the overall picture... in the dead of night, when my hunt was at the peak of ecstasy, a rather young woman who lives two houses down the street decided out of habit to go to the toilet, I apologize. She only managed to open the door, saw a beam of light in the clearing, and ... immediately realized that the toilet is already possible and not in a hurry…
And I would never have known about this, not the most epochal event (and for me, just funny), if not for the continuation of the story the next day. Very early in the evening (about 5 o'clock), when I was sleeping off the night before, I was roused by the woman's relatives who had arrived. In all seriousness, they reprimanded me for "insufficient information preparation of the planned event on the farm" (almost literally). And, worst of all, I was advised to turn the light the other way, just in case. However, as a result of a long negotiation process, I managed to defend this point, and I successfully continued working in the same, most catchy, direction. But the mood was certainly bad.

P.S. That woman is fine. But about UFOs and the like, I would advise her to read less, especially at night.

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24.05.2009 23:27, Zlopastnyi Brandashmyg

When I was picking at a pile of manure three days ago I heard two grannies talking at the end of the garden:
"That's where he is...is our manure rowing?
- And the bag has already got (got the truth instead of gloves)
- Yes, you need to get a bigger dog that bites well

I'm sorry! The story is not entomological, but it is associated with the previous one.

There is always a little bread left in the house, it becomes stale, sometimes moldy, so that it is no longer possible to eat it. What should I do with it? It doesn't seem right to throw it out. It is logical to feed some animal. I go to work with a small bag of bread in my hands. Passing through the next yard (I emphasize - the next one, of course, I'm crazy, but not stupid), I find a wonderful basement-smelly, cluttered, unconscious locals clearly use it as a garbage dump. And what is it I will feed the birds-beaten and unoriginal. And so I crumble bread there and not just crumble, but rather loudly say at the same time: "guli, guli, guli...". Out of the corner of my eye, I notice several ubiquitous grandmothers who were clearly attracted by my happening (? or a performance). Turning to them, I say edifyingly, the most difficult thing was to keep my face completely serious: "And the rat is also a creature of God." The money disappeared instantly.

It was only later that my attention was drawn to the fact that the PND (psycho-neurological dispensary) is just around the corner. Apparently, the grandmas decided that I was from there-and well, it will start biting!

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28.05.2009 12:16, Sanangel

And for me, the most non-"entomological" people are Israelis.
I remember that on the first day of my arrival (10 years ago), we settled in Haifa and on the same day went north to the kibbutz with my son (he had been living there for six months under the Olim program and got a girlfriend, with whom we stopped to stay). Half a kilometer away - Lebanon, the Golan is in full view (kibbutz on the mountain), and to the south-half of Israel can be seen, and below - the Hula Valley (this valley is a special conversation. It is a resting place for migratory birds. If you clap your hands, they block out the entire sky. And pelicans ...). In general, the conversation is not about this.
In the evening, I went out for a walk, and, of course, to see under the streetlights if " who " had fallen( by the way, it was November 30. For Ukraine - winter.) . Believe me, from the abundance of rhinos, ground beetles, pentodons, etc. (new species!!)
I was in shock or something. I wasn't ready for this. There is nothing to collect. I ran home, emptied all the matches out of the boxes, grabbed some jars, boxes. Collect. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see people staring at me from the windows. I keep collecting. People have come out of their houses, I collect, and they are 2 to 3 people standing at each lantern and watch what I do. I can't explain myself (not a word of Hebrew), and they've never seen anything like this in their lives. One went to her son's girlfriend for clarification, and she and her son say what a hobby is. They can't understand. An adult man (I was 50 at the time) collects jukim.
For 99.99 percent of Israelis, everything that crawls and runs is one generalizing word - "juk", and this word means an American cockroach, which is in abundance. Although the cockroach has a Hebrew name "tikan", this word is not used.
Interestingly, everyone considers it their duty (especially children and women) to crush the "juke". Although from childhood we learned two things: not to catch butterflies and not to pick flowers. This is the law. And do not tear and do not catch.
Once I decided to "mow" at the river in a deserted place. One idiot saw, came up, asked, I explained myself (fortunately, I learned Hebrew), he was enraged (Russians don't like it, which is a sin to hide), barely calmed down. I said I don't catch butterflies, just beetles, and I'm writing a book. If he saw a butterfly, he would definitely call the police. And so "jukim", they can be.
In general, it is better with a net if you walk, then so that you do not see. Mixed reaction, although many people ask (especially from the river) - Well, does it bite?
What if the average Israeli saw me picking at a cowcake in search of Onitis?.. Oooooooh!!!!!

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