Cricket

Mea culpa. Today I stepped on a cricket. I was trying to herd it out of the bedroom, at the same time as I was searching around for the glass jar I'd had in there in the night to try to catch the same creature, turned, lost my balance and the cricket lost its life. I really didn't mean to.

And yet I'm relieved. I was kept awake two nights in a row by the incessant chirping. Last night I was up for at least an hour, trying to figure out exactly where it was. I found a lot of dust and a couple of marbles (that's where I lost them!) under my dresser, but no cricket. I shined my flashlight behind a bookcase. No cricket. I checked the closet. No cricket. It had stopped chirping, so I went back to bed.

Chirp!

Again I searched. Again it stopped chirping. Back to bed.

Chirp!

After I got up for the fifth or sixth time I found some earplugs. I could still hear it, but it was muffled.

I took that blurry picture above not in the house but in the garage. I knew the crafty insect wouldn't come out for a photo op and I knew that crickets often scatter when I go in the garage. Ten minutes after I came back in the house I heard another chirp, this time the smoke alarm telling me it needed a new battery. Eerie.

A couple of hours later, I went into the bedroom and there it was, in its shiny glory. That's when I tried to herd it. Squish.

Dragonflies are so much quieter.