Deciding years ago to take in two toads for pets I knew then and I know the same thing now that feeding my two love bugs crickets would present some problems. No, ending up with an accidental cricket hoard inhabiting the house was not the biggest problem I thought of. My over the top, make me quiver, shriek, and cry like a little girl, fear of bugs, besides ladybugs and butterflies, is my biggest problem. Nearly six years and dozens of crickets later I still have this overwhelming phobia.
While the crickets are relatively small, around the size of a penny, every now and then one doesn’t get eaten. This lovely monstrous cricket is now too big for my poor toad to eat. Having a fear that the cricket will now be able to eat the toad I have to call in the troops instead of letting the monster just starve to death. Either that or it will eat all the other crickets— gross but it happens. Wings— it might grow wings and that is DEFINITELY not an option.
I now bring you my segment called:
While the crickets are relatively small, around the size of a penny, every now and then one doesn’t get eaten. This lovely monstrous cricket is now too big for my poor toad to eat. Having a fear that the cricket will now be able to eat the toad I have to call in the troops instead of letting the monster just starve to death. Either that or it will eat all the other crickets— gross but it happens. Wings— it might grow wings and that is DEFINITELY not an option.
I now bring you my segment called:
Eric Carle's Little Cricket, My Big Cricket
The Very Quiet Cricket follows a just born cricket as he tries to answer other insects back by rubbing his wings together. Being a new born he is not allowed to do this. My crickets usually can’t do this. Once in a blue moon I do get one that can rub his wings together and chirp. It scares the hell out of me, being so close he might get out, follow me around and “bug” me. (I now see why insects got the nickname bug.) I’m pretty sure, even though it goes against the saying; I am more scared of it than it is of me.
The cricket even dared to taunt me. Two tanks for each toad and I couldn’t seem to find it. I thought maybe it’s one of the small ones starting to chirp. As I was about to walk away it just had to start chirping to provoke me. I was bothered and with renewed determination to find the monster. With some close listening I could hear an echo coming from the aquarium on the left, the one with no trees and very few places to hide. Below the plastic flower, that’s where it decided to set up headquarters.
I’ll admit it looks cute in some ways and doesn’t seem to want to hurt anyone. When other crickets came to bother it anger did ensue in the form of chirping. With the flash on the camera it looked scarier than with the flash off.
Then the hour and a half chase pursued. I used every utensil possible. A Starbucks’ cup with the bottom cut out. There was a whole Starbucks’ cup, a paper plate, napkin, even an old serving spoon.
I’m surprised the cricket, toad, or I didn’t have a heart attack before it was all over. I finally caught it. I had that moment where I wanted to keep it as a pet. That’s only because I had the safety of the cup. It was better if the cricket escaped to the wild.