Crickets.
That’s what I served my oldest and his motley crue of buddies at his 9th birthday party. Crickets. C-R-I-C-K-E-T-S! Now before I move forward with this story, I must tell you I have a history with crickets. It’s not happy, my cricket story.
It involves a college-age me in 1999 when the plague of crickets descended upon Waco, Texas where I was a student at Baylor University. Literally, crickets fell from the sky like rain. The horror of it all still leaves me nauseous.
And in the midst of that time, I got engaged to the man who would soon become my husband. A regular date during our courtship involved him accompanying me to Barnes and Noble for late night study sessions and this is where the cricket story really takes off.
Friends, as we sat in the hushed bookstore one evening, a cricket FREAKING CRAWLED UP MY PANTS! Do you know what happens when you realize a cricket is in your pants?!
You freak out right there in front of God and everybody.
Once I dug the little Peeping
TomCricket out, I sat down flushed and embarassed as my future husband laughed hysterically.“A cricket…was in. my. pants!” I hissed.
Lee wiped his eyes, leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?” he grinned. “Lucky cricket…”
…..
So you see my conundrum with crickets. I’m not a fan of the wily little buggers. And yet my boy wanted them for his birthday…as a snack. He wanted to eat crickets because he wanted a Bizarre Foods birthday party.
We watch Andrew Zimmern regularly around these parts. My boys ooh and aah and think he’s the coolest person in the whole wide world. My daughter and I wrinkle our noses and gag.
But, I’m a boy mom and boy moms find a way to make their boy’s dreams come true and my boy wanted to eat bugs so I tracked down edible crickets, larvae and scorpion lollipops and became the coolest mom on the block.
I’m over at The MOB Society today sharing a post about the day that my son, thankfully, did not poison us all. Join me over there to read the rest!
And Happy Weekend to you all!
We were living in the south shortly after we got married, and I had a cricket encounter in the bathroom. I was just climbing out of the shower when I spotted this black, leggy thing on the floor in front of me. (Did you know they instinctually jump at you, if they think you’re attacking them? Defense mechanism, or something … ) Before my eyes could make out what it was, it jumped at me. I leaped up onto the lid of the toilet and began screaming for my husband. Meanwhile, the THING continued jumping at me, repeatedly. It was jumping just high enough that I just knew if my husband didn’t come quick, it would actually get on top of the toilet and kill me. I was scared to death.
Of course, as soon as my hubby opened the door, it stopped jumping and sat all docile on the floor, as if to say, “Well, I sure don’t know what all the fuss is about.”
Dumb cricket. 🙂
They are evil, diabolical little creatures. I swear one talked to me once when I walked into my apartment during that year of the plague. I looked to my left and he was perched on my shoulder, his eyes glinting in the moonlight and he whispered, “I’m going to kill you slowly.”
It was horrific…