"Those are crab spider eggs, for sure."

The little yellow spheres which my classmates had brought to me could be nothing else. I had been sitting at the bottom of the slide, doing what six-year-olds do when they are doing nothing when I was approached by a girl named Ireland and her friend Lauren with the objects in question.

Children at the age of six know so little that any inkling of possible knowledge is taken as expertise. I had read a couple Ranger Rick magazines and watched some Animal Planet; therefore, those girls had decided that I, not the teacher, would surely know the identity of the strange yellow pellets. I took the little spheres into my hand, scrutinizing them pensively. I was dismayed to realize that I had no clue what the objects sitting in my hand were.

But no, how could that be? I could not let my classmates down. But more importantly, I too believed that I harbored vast amounts of wisdom in that little two-pound brain of mine. I had to know what these balls were. They were yellow, perfectly round, smooth, marbled and very small -- almost like the abdomen of the illustrated goldenrod crab spider in my favorite book at home. It's funny how open children's minds are to free association; babies call mangoes "apples" (or at least I had), and then one day they're determined that the mysterious yellow balls on the playground and the spiders in their book are irrevocably connected, if not the same thing. Thankfully, I had enough common sense and social prowess to know that not only was it highly improbable for there to be various decapitated spiders lying around, but also that it was definitely a terrible idea to tell a couple of first-grade girls that they were holding dead spider abdomens in their palms. And so, clearly, these little balls were goldenrod crab spider egg sacs.

Now, why would a mother spider abandon her egg sac in some random location in the grass, where it could easily be harmed? And why would there be hundreds of these scattered all over the seemingly neverending field of grass? Both of these questions were, quite frankly, irrelevant; none of my classmates cared enough about spiders to even think of these inconsistencies.

I had even convinced myself that these little balls were indeed spidered egg sacs; after all, if I showed any glimmer of doubt, then my word would become less credible. However, what I overlooked was the fact that telling someone they have two hundred baby spiders in their hand is worse than telling them they have only half a spider.

And so I spent the next five minutes trying to explain how crab spiders were beneficial in every way possible. I learned that starting with "they live in flowers" is not exactly the best way to make people less afraid of these little eight-legged creatures. "They eat wasps" turned out to be a much better strategy. "Bees too."

Crab spiders do indeed hide in flowers, carefully camouflaged with the petals, where they wait for unsuspecting insects who are looking for a sip of nectar. There they lie, deceiving all until it's simply too late. And in that moment, I had become a misleading little crab spider. I tactfully left out the fact that crab spiders try to eat anything which comes to their flower, butterflies included. And soon, it was too late; the class had fallen prey to the tedious task of collecting all the yellow balls which littered the grassy playground. Over the next few days, every snack break and every recess was occupied with collecting what would become the greatest army of wasp and bee-killers that would ever walk this Earth.

At that age, children are graced with a beautiful innocence which makes them ignorant to the fact that they could be wrong. The dissonances within my theory about the mysterious spheres were cast off and ignored because my mind was preoccupied with the notion of it being right. In other words, there was no time to wonder if the strange yellow balls were spider egg sacs because I was busy telling people that they were spider egg sacs. I had convinced myself I was right because the idea of being wrong was unknown. This ignorance is the blessing which allows children to believe in Santa Claus and think that they are graceful ballerinas as they dangerously try to balance on one foot. There is a word in Taiwanese Hokkien for people who think themselves to be smarter, greater, and ultimately irreproachable: senntang.

It directly translates to "a gecko which thinks it's a crocodile." We are all born as little geckos, and perhaps, as we accumulate wisdom, we become crocodiles. However, I believe that we never grow up to become crocodiles. As we age, we simply become more silent as the idea of being wrong looms larger. If I were to be presented with mysterious yellow balls today, I would probably say "I don't know what those are" and speculate silently, not out of laziness, but out of fear of being humiliated or possibly chastised.

Children are fearless and are therefore the heroes of our society; they have the impractical courage and blinding naiveté. Perhaps this is partially why older children stop daydreaming about stories of knights and damsels in distress; they come to realize that their armor and sword may be no match against the formidable dragon which bathes them in accusatory flames. And thus the path away from innocence begins: with the seeds of doubt planted in a child's mind when they are told they are wrong.

I was eventually informed that I was very mistaken about the identity of those yellow balls. One day, the teacher found our bucket full of the mysterious little spheres and gathered all of us to discuss the terrible crime we had committed.

"These are fertilizer pellets. They need to stay on the grass to help it grow."

That statement sent my confidence spiraling down the drain. All of the previously suppressed inconsistencies with my theory came rushing to the forefront, and my heart sank as I realized how stupid I, the crazy girl with the spider book, truly was. The worst thing was that everyone knew that it was me who had convinced the class not only that the pellets were crab spider egg sacs, but also that we needed to collect them. Now, the perplexed teacher was left with a cup full of grass fertilizer and a very embarrassed little girl.

The funny thing is, in hindsight, the only time the grass could have grown was while we were busy collecting fertilizer pellets as opposed to doing every first grader's favorite pastime: ripping out the playground grass by the roots.