Evil Crickets

If you know me, you know that I'm not particularly "girlie."  I don't wear dress often (this seems to be changing lately though), I don't wear a lot of makeup, I consider a ponytail an "up-do", I don't like pink, I hate massages and pedicures (but I do like manicures), I play a lot sports, etc.  But there is one thing that I am very girlie about: I am terrified of all things that can possibly be considered bugs, especially if they fly or jump.

I can understand why some bugs exist, even if I don't like them.  Like bees.  I don't consider bees to be evil because although they do fly and sting and can definitely be considered a bug, they also pollinate flowers and make honey, so I accept them.  But there are other bugs that have no reason to exist other than to make my life miserable.  Like crickets, who have absolutely no redeeming quality.

My fun with crickets predates my memory.  All I know is that I have always hated them and they have always tormented me.  When I was young, I'm sure my parents expected I would eventually outgrown this fear, which they consider completely irrational.  Every few year, a part of me will finally agree with them that it is irrational and I do my best to be brave when faced with this creature from hell, but then a cricket goes and attacks me again and I realize my parents are crazy and my fear is totally rational. 

Let me give you an example.  When I was 18, I went away to college.  This was my first time ever on my own, and while it was scary, it was also very exciting.  I knew nobody at my school, and even my roommate didn't show up for about a week, so I was completely alone.  Feeling lonely and being the girlie girl that I am, I decided hitting a tennis ball against a wall for an hour would make me feel a lot better.  It did, and to top it off, I met a really cute guy on the courts, we hit for a while and eventually ended up becoming friends.

So where does this evil cricket come into play?  Come to find out the town where my school is located gets invaded by crickets every few years, and lucky me, this was that year.  For about a month, you could not go anywhere without stepping on a cricket.  There was a smell from all the dead crickets that permeated everything.  They were invading the rooms on the first floor, and had I lived on the first floor, I would have dropped out of school.  In the midst of this wonderful cricket invasion, this guy calls me to see if I want to play a quick game.  It's dusk, and while there are crickets around all day, I know they'll start coming out in force soon.  But a cute guy just asked me to play, so I stupidly say yes.

Everything is going great for the first few games.  But then the sun goes down.  And the crickets come out.  A lot of them.  They're swarming around the lights, you can hear them hitting the ground, their chirping is incredibly loud.  But I'm playing tennis with a cute guy.  I should probably mention at this point that there had been some flirting going on over the past few weeks.

So we're hitting and joking around, generally having a good time, when I cricket decides now would be the perfect time to dive-bomb me.  I'm not sure where it came from (must have been an undercover cricket), but I know that one minute I'm in the middle of my backswing, and the next I'm being attacked.  I scream, my racket goes flying one way, the ball goes another way, and the cricket has a heart attack......and the cute guy is rolling on the ground laughing.  I blame that cricket for us never having a date.

Now for those of you who think like my brother, that crickets are more scared of me than I am of them, I'd like to point out the fact that you're wrong.  Just stop and think about it for a minute.  Do you attack things you are scared of?  No, of course not.  I'm scared of crickets, so I have never attacked one.  However, I have been attacked by crickets, so they must not be scared of me.

And why exactly am I talking about crickets in the middle of the night?  Because a cricket got into my house today.  I put on a brave face, sprayed it with Raid and then flushed it down the toilet.  While my brain knows it's dead and can't possibly do anything, my "irrational fear" believes that the toilet water actually washed away the Raid before it was completely dead and it came back to life, swam back up through the pipes, crawled out of the toilet, and is just waiting for me to go to sleep so it can get its revenge.  That's not irrational, right?