They were just grasshoppers . But there were millions of them, which was why dad was so anxious to get rid of them. "They're totally destroying our beans," he told Mom over lunchtime one Saturday. "I've been trying to keep them out of the tomatoes, but I don't know if I can make it." "Isn't there something you can do about them?"Mom asked. She was mostly concerned about the tomatoes. "I think there's a spray  or something," Dad said. "I'm going down to the garden center after lunch and see if they have any suggestions." I'm pretty sure that's what he said. But what I heard was, "While I'm gone, why don't you and George come up with your own plan for getting fid of the grasshoppers?" And so that's what we did. It was the summer between fifth and sixth grade, so we were feeling pretty clever and mature. Certainly we knew how to get rid of these grasshoppers. That seemed simple enough. Finally Ron and Don joined us but then, things got a little crazy. Before we knew it we were doing terrible experiments. I won't describe our experiments. Let's just call it "The Adventures of the Marquis de Orkin". Da came home and saw these different deaths. We were laughing, but the laughter quickly turned to silence when we saw the look on my dad's face. "What are you boys doing?" he asked . "We're just sort of helping to get rid of the grasshoppers," I said. "This isn't 'getting rid of grasshoppers,'" Dad said. "This is killing." I was confused. I looked at the insecticide he was carrying. "But aren't you going to kill grasshoppers with that?" I asked. "Yes, because it's something we need to do for the protection of our garden," he said seriously. "But I'm not going to enjoy it." It can be inferred from the text that   _  .
the tomatoes in the garden were badly damaged by grasshoppers the father was advised to get rid of grasshoppers with insecticide the father asked the author to help catch grasshoppers the author's way of treating grasshoppers was interesting