Thursday, September 18, 2008

Invasion of the Crickets

The place where I am living right now is literally crawling with crickets. If it were any other kind of bug I would be totally grossed out, but I guess that whole Jiminy Cricket thing makes me think they are nice. Sort of. Thanks to Walt Disney they've risen above mere bug status in my mind.


Nice or not, they're kind of annoyingly loud at this hour. There's one over in the corner right now that I just yelled at a few times. It crawled about six inches each time I yelled at it. So they're not deaf - they know they're being loud at all hours. Sometimes I attempt to clear a few of them out, but I know it's basically pretty hopeless this month. I must admit that sometimes I get mad - I've stepped on a few because I'm a bully and an evil cricket murderer. But most of them get to be free-range crickets. I think in China they eat crickets. Or maybe it's the Phillipines. Or Africa? Somewhere I know they eat crickets. These crickets of mine should be grateful.

I don't know where all the crickets go in October but all of a sudden they disappear. They stop chirping. Does the end of cricket season mean that they've died? Do they go back outside? They must, because if they came inside to die I'd see piles of dead crickets lying around everywhere. Maybe they just come in to say goodbye. I should be a little nicer to them if that is the case.

This evening when I came home there were five crickets lined up on the stoop outside the door, just waiting for someone to open the door. I had my bass with me and because of my limited mobility with the foot cast and the wheel on my bass, I was not able to knock any of them out of the way. All five of them hopped in as soon as I got the door open. That's five additional crickets in the house right now. These crickets are driving me crazy!!!

7 comments:

Scenic Wheaton said...

crickets are supposed to be good luck. But I agree with you. They give me the willies.

Mo said...

Hahahha...

I keep picturing that little troupe of crickets waiting patiently to be let in :)

Sorry they're driving you nuts, though.

Kate Coveny Hood said...

I hate to admit it - but crickets scare the hell out of me when I find them in my basement. Something about all that springing around. Always makes me scream.

Cyndy said...

If I see just one cricket I always feel a pleasant little good luck vibe. But having so many in the house all at once makes it hard to feel benevolent.

Kate - it sounds like you might be talking about those hoppy bugs, otherwise known as mole crickets. They live in basements and are really ugly and they jump about six feet into the air. They're HORRIBLE and CREEPY. The crickets I have are the normal fat black kind. They don't jump too high. Mostly they just chirp alot.

Mo said...

I was walking down a sidewalk lined with high grass yesterday and was being pelted from all sides by grasshoppers. As I ran home screaming, I was reminded of your post.

Cyndy said...

Pelted by grasshoppers! Why is it that my brain goes into surreal fantasyland mode whenever I envision insects? And they nearly always become gigantic science fiction creatures. I'm not a screamer but when screaming is mentioned I'm highly sympathetic. I hope those grasshoppers were not pelting you with "tobacco juice" as my mom used to call that icky brown stuff they dispense.

Just as I've gotten used to all the crickets, they've decided to not be as noisy, and there don't seem to be as many of them around anymore. Two of them hopped out the door when I left this morning. I think I'm actually going to miss them a little bit.

Washington Cube said...

Frost kills them off and yes, it's been a particularly bad year for house crickets.