There has been a lot of discussion of bugs, for the bloggers in the DC area.
Since we have moved into this house, we have been tortured by crickets. This one cricket actually. It has taken up residence under my china cabinet and we can't get it out and it chirps ALL NIGHT LONG. Even Michael one morning told me he didn't sleep well because of "some bug."
Yesterday morning, the cricket jumped out RIGHT IN FRONT ME. Now, let me explain, this was not a regular cricket. This was the cricket that ate Manhattan. This thing was enormous. So I did what any normal person (well, woman) would do, I screamed. A lot. And then I grabbed Doug's huge work boots and I smashed the hell out of the cricket. That thing, like the nuclear cricket it was, REFUSED TO DIE. That hangeron cricket survived being smashed to smithereens, for several minutes.
Michael was laughing hysterically while this was going on. He told everyone at school about "Mommy screaming at the cricket." He was cracking up in the background while I told Doug this story on the phone. I'm still not convinced that cricket was not going to eat us and I didn't save our lives. I can see the headlines now, woman and 4 year old eaten by cricket, news at 11.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Ugh! Was it one of those “cave crickets”? I can handle the run-of-the-mill black shiny crickets who can’t hop all that high, but when we moved last year we discovered that our new basement was a favorite hang-out for cave crickets, which look more like spiders than crickets and can jump about 5 feet in any direction without warning. I am trying desperately not to pass my bug phobias on to my daughter, but there was one incident when I was playing with her in the playhouse downstairs and I noticed there were two crickets on the ceiling right above my head. I almost knocked my own child over while screaming and thrashing my way out of the playhouse, and unfortunately my husband was downstairs to witness it all! I totally feel your pain!
All the DC Bug stories are cracking me up.
Although, I will admit the worst thing about having tarantulas is that they eat CRICKETS. Arachnids? Not a problem! Crickets? Are another story. I HATE crickets – they are nasty and smelly. Seriously, SMELLY.
Jodi, you could not live in my house. My son is constantly catching critters and I find “samples” all over the house in the little containers I bought him expressly for that purpose because I was tired of him using my good Tupperware.
Ugh. I hate crickets. We had tons of them when I was growing up in Tucson and my cat would bring them to bed, half alive (shudder).
You know, I’m pretty damn brave about bugs (taking an entomology class in college helped a lot) but I seriously agree with the Sara about those cave crickets (also called camel crickets or antelope crickets). We had those stupid things in our basement (where the laundry room was) when I was a kid. I was terrified of them! Lucky for me they are much more rare in Florida. I’ve only seen one or two in all my years down here.
I hate bugs that jump or fly AT you. Aren’t they supposed to run away?
We had camel crickets the first couple summers we were in our current house, but I haven’t seen any in years now. It’s a good thing, as the spider population in the house disappeared with the jumping ping pong balls (seriously, the damn things get huge).
Man I hate those cave crickets! So huge and ugly and awful! My dog pulls the back legs off so we have poor crippled crickets wandering around our house sometimes. Makes them easy to catch and toss outside. But hubby does that! I just stick cups on top of them and wait until he comes home.
Oh the horrid crickets. We get them all. the. time. And they hide and chirp. And chirp. And chirp. It is maddening. Luckily, we have cricket hunting cats, but they aren’t enough to entirely quell the cricket population. Plus, they leave cricket parts all over the place. I hate crickets.
It is a VERY good thing you are not going camping.
We had huge crickets in our house. They kept coming in my basement and garage and finding their way into my house. I don’t like bugs in any shape or form. I bought a huge box of non-toxic glue traps at Amazon (they are used by Terminex and Orkin – not the same type you’d buy the at grocery store) and I put all over the place (where my son doesn’t have access to). At first I would wake up and the glue traps would be covered in crickets. Now they are gone! gone! gone! gone!