Stick Bug Surprise

I had a funny incident with my stick bugs this morning. On the way back from walking the kids to school, I clipped a fresh blackberry branch to replace the dying branch in my stick bug cage. The adult male was on the ceiling of the cage, so I pulled out and held the old branch (with the 4 babies) over the sink while I replaced the water in the container and stuck the new branch into the cage.

Then I carefully transferred the baby sticks one by one to the new branch. But to my dismay, I could only find 3 stick bugs, not 4 (and I had even hoped for more!). I searched for some time, leaving the old branch on the bottom of the cage, just in case I had missed the 4th baby stick but it was still there.

Then since I was getting ready for an appointment, I brushed my teeth, changed my shirt (including cutting off the tags since it was the first time I wore it), checked my phone messages (replaying one of them a few times, to get the phone number), wrote an email, and then stopped at the washroom before I headed out the door.

While on the potty, I felt something tickling my shoulder. Good thing I have a pretty strict look-before-you-slap policy, because, to my astonishment, it was the baby stick bug. He must have climbed up my arm while I held that old branch over the sink. But how he managed to cling onto me while changing my shirt and all the other activities (which was probably 20 minutes' worth) is a mystery to me. But I was very pleased to be able to return him to his cage before going to my appointment. Much better than if I had discovered him while at the appointment!