Where All ‘Good Luck’ Crickets Go To Die

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Pic by Encyclopedia Brittanica

by Erin Nanasi

We have a three car garage attached to the house we are renting. The house is on a little over an acre of land, and we, over the past year, have discovered a plethora of wild creatures inhabiting the land around this house.

Foxes, field mice, prairie dogs, chipmunks, at least 10 species of bird, 2 barn cats and a lot of insects.

We have wasps the size of your thumb, deer flies that can carry off a small child, ants galore and crickets. The crickets, however, seem to be dwindling in numbers.

A little over a month ago, during the nth heat wave this summer, I walked out into the garage and found a lone cricket, resting in the shade. I consider crickets lucky, so I stepped carefully over him, and drove to the store. When I came back to the house, I made sure not to run over the cricket, and made sure he/she was still okay. The cricket scuttled away from me, and I grinned. Happy cricket.

The next morning, the cricket was dead. Nothing was missing, it had not been dismembered by who knows what, it was in the same position, dead. I pondered this for a moment, then, because we do have so many birds flitting about, I put the cricket corpse out on the grass. Sort of an offering in exchange for them not pooping on my head.

A week went by, and bam, another cricket. Alive and well, just resting in the garage. And again, the next morning, the cricket was dead. Um. Two crickets had chosen our garage to spend their last moments on this mortal coil. Interesting, and a little creepy. Out went the corpse into the lawn.

As of today, we have had 22 crickets hop into our garage and promptly drop dead. There is nothing toxic in the garage, our cement floor is not laced with cyanide, we just seem to be the gathering place for dying crickets. Sunday, I tried to rescue one: I picked it up gently in an attempt to place it back onto the grass. It jumped, oh about 125 feet into the air, I screamed (I’m a GIRL), and it landed happily back on the concrete, glaring at me.

“Come on! Here, look,” as I pointed towards the cool grass, “That’s where you want to be! Not in this icky old garage. Out there, with the ants and other crawly things you can eat.”

Glare.

“Fine. You’ll go when you’re ready.”

And dead cricket.

Look, I am no conspiracy theorist, but there is something weird going on here. Wasps don’t zip into the garage and collapse on the floor. We have spiders alive and well in all the corners, making little baby spiders. We have moths, butterflies (little purple ones-SO cute), some sort of tiny white fuzzy thing that looks like the head of a pipe cleaner, and they all LIVE. What the hell, crickets?

Is it an omen? Crickets are good luck in many Asian countries, and while we are not Asian, we subscribe to the theory that crickets are pretty cool bugs, and we would never kill one. Our garage seems to disagree. Is this a garage out of a Stephen King novel? If so, why are all the other bugs thriving? Why did we practically need napalm to get rid of our field mice infestation? Why are the moths perfectly fine? Why is our garage killing crickets?

My husband says it’s HAARP. Right. Here’s his wildly silly theory: radio waves caused by the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) are affecting the crickets on the property, because their ears on in their legs, thus making them more susceptible to the OH FOR SHIT’S SAKE.

Do crickets have ears on their legs? I should Google that. Give me a few minutes-I’m turning 500 match boxes into cricket coffins. Anyone have a ton of purple silk bunting and a lot of really tiny pillows?

Edited from an article originally published on August 29, 2012.

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About Post Author

Erin Nanasi

Erin Nanasi is an avid underwater basket weaver, with a penchant for satire and the odd wombat reference.
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4 years ago

So this is why I received an email out of the blue about you changing a password I hadn’t used in over 7 years. I guess I should be flattered you use my old articles to drive your traffic, but I just find it kind of smarmy.

Reply to  Erin Nanasi
4 years ago

You should feel flattered that I would republish your articles. I do apologize for those I edited but failed to give you credit. Auto-publish defaults to me, and I have fixed it.

Neil Bamforth
Reply to  Erin Nanasi
4 years ago

Smarmy??? It’s good mate. You must be a nice guy to write like that so be nice 🙂

Reply to  Neil Bamforth
4 years ago

She’s not always nice Neil, which is one of the reasons she no longer writes for us. Too bad, because her writing belies her nature as you noticed.

Shirley62
4 years ago

I agree it’s a change and rather a spooky one, because I’m not sure if there’s a moral to this story, and I guess it doesn’t matter does it?

Martin Helo
4 years ago

This is a little different, and there’s something about it I really like. A nice change from politics, and my introduction to HAARP which I vigorously Googled.

Admin
4 years ago

This is beautifully done. I’ll never look at a cricket the same way again.

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