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Cricket
Friday, September 30th, 2005 by joelA Game. A Game with crumpets and tea…
The chirping that originates from the left side of my doorway at a decibel mere wavelengths above the noise of street construction starting at around 11:30pm each and every night and continuing to about two minutes before my alarm clock goes off comes from a sizable insect (as insects go) called a cricket. The Chinese keep them in cages, ostensibly because they bring good luck. My personal theory is that, in doing so, they can place the caged bug about three miles from their beds, thusly assuring a fairly undisturbed rest.
I know all these things because I spent most of my childhood reading about and studying insects. Don’t ask me why, I don’t actually remember.
Despite the incessant nuisance this creature causes me, and my slow but inexorable descent into madness due to lack of sleep, I cannot bring myself to dislike or destroy the bug (you know, if I could find it). This generosity of nature on my part is mostly due to the burden of knowledge. I happen to know that only the male cricket chirps. So that’s one thing. We are both guys, and as such have to look out for our own kind. I also happen to know that the only reason that guy crickets chirp is that they are looking for a woman. And I really can’t begrudge him that. I definitely know what that is like. I’ve been looking out for my boy. Every time I see a female cricket (obvious because of the large ovipositor that protrudes from their abdomen) I sort of nudge her in that direction. But either my guy is too picky, or the women are, because he’s still singing his song every night.
In a way, I kind of envy the little guy. If I could get a woman simply by virtue of being loud, I would have one. As it is, I have to contend with the infinitely more subtle tastes of the human female. And unfortunately I know far more about bugs than I do human females. How wasted my childhood was.
