On the scale of bothersome bugs that give me the heebie jeebies and demand instant death, crickets do not rank very high. Comparatively. If I see a cricket and there is a handy weapon nearby, I may make use of it, but if there isn’t then I won’t go out of my way to find one. So sometimes the cricket escapes to live another day.
One exception to this is if a cricket jumps on me. Yuck. Luckily that hasn’t happened in recent memory. Another more common exception is if a cricket wakes me up in the middle of the night. In either case I will hunt that chirping fiend down until it has been flattened by the underside of a shoe.
And who decided that “chirp” is the right word for the noise a cricket makes when it is happily sawing its legs together in my bedroom in the middle of the night? “Chirp” does not begin to describe the piercing quality of the noise that for some reason sounds like it’s being produced right next to my ear.
Anyway, this happened the other night. Since I am entering that uncomfortable stage of pregnancy where it is impossible to fall asleep, I had tossed and turned for a bit and didn’t even realize I had finally fallen asleep until I was violently woken up by a “chirping” serenade. Needless to say, I was annoyed. So I went on a mission: search and destroy.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to find the cricket, given their habit of “chirping” madly only until they sense they are in danger from a flip-flop. But I did eventually manage to rustle the cricket out of it’s hiding place and one good whack did the job. Sweet silence. Of course, I was very awake at that point, and while trying to fall back asleep my muddled brain decided I needed to write about crickets on my blog at the next opportunity. So that’s what I’m doing. Somehow, it seemed more amusing in the wee hours of the morning. You can thank my sleep deprivation.
On a side note, a large percentage of the crickets we spot around the house are missing one back leg. I like to think it’s because they are being relentlessly hunted by our house lizards. It does look awfully funny when they try to jump.
So, crickets. Major pest or minor annoyance? What say you?
Totally depends...I won't go out of my way to kill them. However, this gave me massive memories of being outside when I was younger and having them jump up from the grass and onto my feet. ICK!
ReplyDeleteKelly on the other hand will jump up and kill a cricket at the first sound it makes and it drives him absolutely insane if he cannot find it. LOL
Search and destroy. There are few things more annoying than the sound of a cricket chirping when you are trying to sleep!
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