The cicadas are back in town. Spread the word around. (Pat yourself on the back if you immediately started singing the song.) Though my fun with boys is limited, ’cause I’m a lesbian, I can emphatically say cicadas are not as fun as boys (you’ll get this if you know the song).
Cicadas are a fucking disaster.
My state is one of seventeen states currently experiencing the emergence of these very noisy and very ugly insects. Why couldn’t cicadas look more like lovely butterflies rather than Freddy Krueger with wings.
I’ve been around cicadas since I was a kid. Every thirteen and seventeen years a new brood of cicadas have come up through the trees. I remember the noise. I remember them clustered all over the trees stumps and branches, and the crunch under your shoes as you stepped on a shell or, accidentally, a live one. But I don’t remember the attacks.
I have two trees in my front yard. One is covered with them, the other, only minimally. I took my dog out and felt like I was in a scene from the movie The Birds. One by one they descended upon me, flying into my face and my hair– the way the blackbirds attacked the kids in the movie. (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but those flying insects do come at you.)
Thankfully, unlike the birds in the movie, cicadas don’t bite. I think they just gravitate to whatever object is moving. That has been my non-expert observation.
Everyone I know is bothered by them. No one was looking forward to the arrival of these red-eyed flying bugs, but I read in the Chicago Sun-Times that people from parts of this country, and other countries, are traveling to my state. Apparently, Illinois is the “hotspot” location for “cicada observers” or “cicada enthusiasts” or just those good old-fashioned nature lovers.
According to the article, central Illinois will have the most tourists because that area will be host to both the thirteen-year and seventeen-year cicada species. I don’t know which species is making all that racket outside my house, I’m just amazed that people are excited to spend money to see these, as my mother likes to call them, “little fuckers”.
“Fuckers! All of them!” A friend texted me today.
I think you get the picture of how the locals feel about the temporary cicada invasion.
My neighbor texted me this afternoon to get a cicada out of her bedroom. It had come into the house the night before. She had slept on the couch. Equipped with a broom and a flashlight, I found the little bugger alive under her bed.
Just today, after coming in from outside with my dog, I thought I had felt something in my hair, but it was very faint, so I went on. Then about six seconds later, it moved and made its high-piercing sound right next to my ear. I dropped my head and shook my hair. The ugly thing fell to the floor.
My mother yelled, “Kill it! Kill it!”
I did not. I picked it up with a paper towel and let it back outside. Even though I’m not a fan of insects and bugs, I don’t kill them when I find them in my house. If I can pick them up with a towel, I will let them outside. If I can’t pick them up, I leave them be. Figure they’ll just crawl back into the walls or something, and I won’t see them again.
But things always don’t end up like that, despite my good intentions. The other day I came in from outside. Went to the bathroom. Sat on the toilet. And then I heard it. That high-piercing screech. I shot up. Shook my hair. Looked in the mirror and saw the thing stuck to the back of my T-shirt.
I flicked it to the floor, grabbed some tissue, and I crushed that son of a bitch.
I’m sorry. But that was neither the time nor the place to make your presence known. RIP, Crushed Cicada.
I hope this post was helpful to anyone curious about these insects. I was going to include a picture of a cicada. I have so many huddled around my tree, but no way was I bending over to take a picture of them. I shudder to think how many cicadas would end up on my back and in my hair.
Google is a beautiful thing.
Edit: I included a picture of a cicada from the public domain. I did not take this myself.
aliciajoseph 