Will has a job.  He's 5 years old, so I'm sure we're violating some child labor law somewhere, but he's excited about working and I'm excited that he's excited.  Yesterday after his job, he said he needed "two helpings at dinner.  I'm sure hungry.  I'm a Workin' Man, you know." 

Our next door neighbors hired Will to pick up their mail, feed and water their cat, and they're paying him to do it.  Lovely people, our neighbors.  He has an illustrated job description courtesy of the neighbors - she's a teacher - and he carries his job description with him as he performs his duties.  He reads the list off to me.  I go along on the job for two reasons: 1. I'm sure, though Will says they wouldn't mind, the neighbors don't want a 5 year old in sole possession of their house keys, and 2. This is an old cat who has recently lost her appetite and has started losing weight.  Basically I go along to make sure the cat hasn't passed on to that great catnip field in the sky.  I've explained to Will that our job is to keep that cat alive until Monday.  No matter what, there will be no death on our watch.  Under no circumstance should we allow that cat to crossover.  Will understood.

I asked the neighbors what I should do, should the cat decide to pass on.  We determined a stint in the freezer would suffice until they returned home to give a proper burial.  I'm praying very hard that I do not have to put a cat who has followed the bright light home to Sweet Beulah Land into a deep freeze next to food.

So far, the cat has not emerged from the master bedroom of the neighbors' house, though Will and I have done everything we can to coax her out.  Normally I would just drop off the mail and make sure there was food and water, but these are special circumstances.  Good neighbors don't allow their neighbors to return to a home where a week old dead cat has progressed along the stages of decomp.  The smell alone would be enough to lose good friends over.  In addition to this, Will's job description has a picture of a little boy petting a cat.  It says "You can pet her."  To Will, this means he is not through with the daily tasks until he has pet her.  So we do our best to coax her out, Will trying to fulfill his job description and me, trying to take the cat's vitals to determine if I need to rush her 6 houses down to the other neighbor, who happens to be a vet. 

After the job is over we sit on the back porch with our popsicles.  Will noticed we have grasshoppers.  He loves bugs.  All bugs.  Except fire ants.  He hates fire ants.  But these large, green grasshoppers are a source of entertainment and education for him.  And since he was entrusted with the care of the neighbors' cat's life, he has taken this to all creatures, great and small.

While we were in the backyard, eating popsicles and chasing grasshoppers, Chris was in the front yard, preparing to mow.  Will heard him start the mower.

"Is Dad mowing?"

"Sounds like it."

"Well you have to stop him!  You have to stop him before he gets back here!  You just have to stop him Mom!"

I didn't say anything.  I didn't get it.  He ran inside and returned with a Mason jar.  He handed the jar to me and said "Follow me!"  I did.  He collected every grasshopper he could, putting each one in the Mason jar.  He shouted explicit instructions on the opening and closing and the handling of the jar.  He was a regular Schindler to these grasshoppers.  He was rescuing them from the lawnmower. 

Of course, I just know these grasshoppers are parasiting themselves on my new Japanese maple tree and my hydrangea bushes, but I don't have the heart to tell him this.  He's saving lives.  So here I sit, wondering what on earth to do with a Mason jar full of grasshoppers. 

I fear he's bringing his work home with him.