HUMOR
The 3rd Time is Never the Charm
Fear of D.C. cicadas might still be bugging me
No, it wasn’t a swarm of locusts, but still…
We were enjoying a quiet afternoon on the screened-in porch. A light breeze wafted from the woods out back. Birdsong pleasantly invaded our space.
Suddenly, a familiar cacophony punctured the reverie.
Bzzzzzzzzzz…bzzzzzzzzzz…click-click, click-click, clickclickclickclick…brrrrrrrrrrrdddddd…
A bad penny — and Ted Cruz — always come back. So do cicadas.
If April showers bring May flowers, May flowers bring cicadas — to D.C. and environs — every 17 years.
Like a bad penny, or Ted Cruz, these large, loud, insistent insects keep returning. Something to do with mating patterns. But don’t ask me for specific details. The only science I really understand is the need to wear a mask to my local food emporium.
We lived through D.C.’s Cicada Invasion twice — once in 1987, when the hordes seemed more like a swarm of locusts, and again in 2004, when the bugs with the big, red, bulbous eyes returned to wreak their havoc.
Frankly, I’ve been thrilled — beyond excited, even — that I wouldn’t have to witness another invasion. My thinking? We might have moved to North Carolina in the middle of a pandemic, but by golly, we’re gonna miss the cicada infestation this time around!
The one piece of IKEA furniture you don’t have to assemble.
Cleo the Cat opened one sleepy eye, then half-opened the other. Then, she stretched her front legs and stood up on the back of the sofa.
Yeah, that sofa. The ugly, baby-poop brown one we bought at IKEA about two decades ago. The one that would fit right in at some beer-soaked campus toga party, but doesn’t particularly deserve a place in the pantheon of tasteful interior design. Or any interior design. But Moker insisted this worn-out relic make the trip when we moved.
So now we have a place for Moker and Cleo to take comfortable cat naps. Plus, no assembly required!
So, we’re comfortable in Charlotte, which isn’t expected to greet any of the Brood X suckers currently lobbying Capitol Hill and surrounding D.C. suburbia.
Mother Nature, meet Flying Godzilla.
But we all know that Mother Nature works in strange ways.
Soon Cleo was on her feet, after one stretch and a Halloween Kitty arch of her sleek, grey back. And on the case — some kind of large bug (a cicada?!?) was doing flips and buzzing in circles in the opposite corner of the porch. She hopped down from the ugly brown couch to investigate. I followed.
Seriously, the thing looked like a Flying Godzilla. Creepy bugged-out red eyes and all.
Bzzzzzzzzzz…bzzzzzzzzzz…click-click, click-click, clickclickclickclick…brrrrrrrrrrrdddddd…(Repeatedly, so Cleo knew just where to go.)
A flash of fur, a crash into the stand that has faithfully held my Spider (of the plant, not insect, variety) since its days in Room 215; a few more buzzy-type noises, the trill of a kitty’s meows when it’s on the prowl, a couple of clicks, and…
Nothing.
South Florida summers prepared me for this — sort of.
Where did he/she/it go? (Sorry, no time to research pronouns when Cleo is on the prowl.) I leaned in toward the commotion.
There it is!
I guess I should tell you that I spent many childhood summers in South Florida. No bug — not even the biggest Palmetto Bug I’ve ever encountered — could stop me. I joined Cleo in the corner and reached the insect just as it tried to awkwardly waddle away. No clue why it didn’t try flying.
Gotcha!!!
A stomp heard ’round the world — or around my new neighborhood, at least. I put the full force of my bare left foot into that move. Cleo was mighty impressed, though sad that I had demolished her prey.
Cicadas must have nine lives.
I returned to my Adirondack chair. Sat down just as Cleo turned, too, and pursued the bug I thought I’d wrecked. Guess I merely stunned it, because it resumed its waddle, with the cat right on its tail.
A teacher’s aside: Pretty sure, come to think of it, that bugs don’t have tails. Please file that last reference in the figurative language bin. Sorry — English teachers might retire, but they appear to live forever. Much like that dang bug we were after.
Mr./Mrs./Ms. Cicada was just a scooch ahead of impending doom. Just as Cleo went in for the kill, it waddled under the ratty old rag rug beneath our comfy hammock chair.
The story — and the cicada — that just wouldn’t die.
You’d think that would be the end of my tale. But noooooooooo…some bugs refuse to give up the ghost. A couple hours later, after we’d cleared the dinner dishes and settled down for some boob tube browsing, I heard that familiar song.
Bzzzzzzzzzz…bzzzzzzzzzz…click-click, click-click, clickclickclickclick…brrrrrrrrrrrdddddd…
And I listened as Cleo hopped down from the hideous old brown IKEA sofa and dashed across the porch one more time. Her pursuit, alas, was in vain once more.
That buzzy, buggy critter had a few more clicks left, I reckon. The sun had sunk beyond the trees on the far side of our porch, and there was no finding that dang cicada-like thing on this moonless North Carolina night.
Beauty and the Beast — a tale as old as time
The conclusion of this Beauty (Cleo and me) and the Beast (You-Know-Who) story, of course, ended as most big bug tales do.
Moker joined me on the porch the next morning to chat while I read the paper. He looked to his left, where the scramble had taken place the previous day.
Eeeeeeeeeeewwwww…
A fairly large bug, with shimmery wings and big, buggy orange eyes, lay on its back behind the comfy hammock chair, just beyond the back edge of the ratty old rag rug. Legs up, all six of ’em. A goner, for sure.
Score one for the Good Guys in this contest of wills. And please, nobody tell me we killed a “helpful” insect, and that we should let Mother Nature take her course. We had no way of knowing if this creature was a cicada-type bug, or perhaps a poisonous Carolina Creepy-Crawly. As I told you: Science isn’t my thing.
We’re available to cater your next event.
Cleo and I got off relatively unscathed. But I know what my friends up D.C. Way will face from now through at least the end of June. Gazillions of cicadas, covering every square inch of tree trunks, driveways, mailboxes, garage doors, stoplights, from Silver Spring to Arlington, Dupont Circle to Springfield.
If you need our services, Cleo and I will be available for a modest per diem. Meanwhile, we’ll be parked on the screened-in porch — she on the ugly old brown sofa, me in my Adirondack chair. Just waiting for the clickclickclickclick to come from the corner near the ratty old rag rug.
Watch out. I’m a South Paw. And I have a vicious left foot. A bare one, in fact.