I just smashed a camel cricket with my fly swatter and was totally and completely disgusted with the result. That's my excuse reason for this post.
You may ask why I didn't catch it and return it to the outdoors...well, have you ever chased a cricket?? It ain't pretty when I do it. Crickets are one of the super men of the insect world, cousins to the grasshopper, with their leaps and bounds. Their evasive skills put them in the intelligent category for me. In the past when I have chased a cricket it is running and hopping in sheer terror from the stumbling giant hot on its tail. Most chase and catches always ended badly for the cricket not on purpose but it happens. So I don't think of good luck when I see one. I think of the poop he is leaving as he travels through the house.
I remembered many people believe crickets bring good luck. Mashing one brings misfortune. So now I'm in deep doo-doo and await my fate. Hey, that could be my problem...all the crickets I have mashed with an almost grateful joy after chasing them in, under, and over household items...a triumphant end to them, a deletion of fortune for me.
I'm sorry but one of my childhood chores was catching camel crickets for fish bait. When they invaded the storm cellar I was sent in to catch them all in anticipation of fish for supper. Those suckers can jump. And they did. All over me. But I persevered and came out with a cage full of crickets. I secretly thought no one liked them or me since I was the assigned catcher. No one said that and they said all the right words when I emerged victoriously from a cleared cellar..
Brown crickets do not affect me as badly because those can be caught under mowed grass quite easily and are not as prone to jump into my hair, onto my face, under my shirt, up my shorts leg and onto any spot they think is safe.
To this day if I hear a male "singing" his mating song, I track him down! The songs of crickets don't put me to sleep, quite the opposite. I don't have a fear or an aversion to crickets just no affection for them.
At least I know now why I'm not the next candidate for the presidency, I've killed my good fortune.
19 comments:
LOL! Never knew that's what those pesky guys were called...there seem to be more Camels now than good old Brown...:)JP
Poor old Jiminy! It's just not cricket!!!!!! :)
i have only seen and HEARD the brown crickets and have hated them my whole life. bad enough the sound of them coming in the windows on a hot summer night, but if one got in the house the NOISE drove me nuts. so yes i have mashed and sprayed to death however many came in the house. not for the poop but the noise level... now i wonder what their purpose in life is... maybe to be fish bait... daddy did worms for fishing and all i had to do was dig them up which was fun and quiet
Camel crickets look leprous to me or, I know! they look like zombie crickets!
don't think i've ever seen a camel cricket!
This was fun to read! I'd never given much thought to crickets but this post has made them more interesting. We hear the crickets singing in the summer but that's about it. Since the winters are quite cold here, there isn't an insect in sight outdoors!
Who would think that a Camel Cricket would be your newly found creative outlet?
This was delightful . . .
Loved the images of you being
HUGGED BY CRICKETS!
I remember my grandpa paying me a nickel a cricket and a dime a grasshopper. If I got one of those giant grasshoppers it was a quarter.
I don't know if I could do that now to save my life. I have an aversion to the legs.
I like them as long as they do their singing outside. When the kids had lizards that ate crickets, I was always having to chase them at night. I can't sleep either.
Lovely story Gail.
I just saw on the news that they recalculated the trajectory of asteroid Apophas and it's going to smash directly into your farm on Christmas Day, 2017. I am sure this is just a coincidence, though. ;-)
When we had a bearded dragon as a pet, we fed her crickets. Yuck. They got out of the beardies enclosure and then I had crickets eating my house and leaving poop everywhere (they stink). We found other things to feed the beardie and like you, I took pleasure in eradicating those bothersome crickets. See.....that explains a lot about you and I sista. xoxo
Only good cricket is a dead cricket in my opinion. I'm with you, if I hear one I have to track him down to eliminate his song. Or we could feed him to my grandson's toad.
Funny story about you catching crickets in the cellar.
Not sure what kind gets in our house, but there is at least one month every summer we are invaded. I do my best to catch and release though.
No lottery wins for you, lol!
Lynne x
I have only seen brown crickets here but I hunt them down if they come inside and do no release them only to come back in.
Not sure I would consider being a
pPresidential candidate any kind of good fortune!
Didn't know they had varieties. This will sound strange but the only crickets I have ever seen have been in a bait box. Maybe I had better check out my storm cellar.
Well now I know. I mash them, too. Or get someone else to.
^_^
Crickets. I love the sound they make, but they totally gross me out in person. When I lived in Palm Springs, CA as a child, they used to get so thick that you literally couldn't find a way to step on the sidewalk without crunching one.
UGH and double UGH!!
"/
Well, I do not know anything about crickets ... and I now know a lot more, so thank you.
All the best Jan
I've never seen a camel cricket, fascinating. I don't squish them because I just can't do that to a cricket, now a spider is another story.
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