Chasing Crickets - Dieting Journal

Astrophe's Journal

August 3, 2000 -- 11:45 PM EST

I was in the office and heard Paul carrying on hollering all over the house.

him: Ahhh! Bastard! Cat, I'm so sorry!

me: What's the matter with you?

him: Ahhh! Nailed ya!

me: Paul?

him: I apologize! It's all my fault! Come back here! Gotcha!

me: Okaaaay....

him: We need to turn all the turtles loose inside the house! A-ha! Another one!

He comes in to the office bearing one of the refrigerator crisper bins and it's full of crickets. Part of me groans because this means I have to disinfect the bin tomorrow before I set it back in the fridge and I am wondering what he did with the vegetables. Why couldn't he stop long enough to think to find a better bucket than just grab the produce drawers? The other part of me tries really hard not to laugh. I am supposed to be Officially Annoyed with him because of the banking after all.

him: (pointing and frisky, jumping crickets cavorting in the bin) These die first.

me: How come? What's happening? (knowing full well what must have happened but interested in his story)

him: I was working on my plane and I saw a little thing run by in the living room and I thought, "Oh, no! Little roaches. Better kill him or else Cat will have a fit." Then when I looked closer it was a cricket so I ran to check the case.

me: Oh no... (groaning)

him: I'm really, really sorry! I tried to catch most of them. (apologetic, because he knows I'm in Officially Annoyed mode.)

me: You mean there are more?

him: Most likely. You see, when I went to the pet store... well, it was really busy, and I guess when the guy cut off my box from the big block of cases he cut too fast and made a tiny hole into the tape. Don't worry I taped it back up as soon as I found it. Only one cricket can squeeze through at a time.

me: But you are still basically telling me that we have a cricket invasion?

him: Well....kinda....um, yeah. (sheepish)

me: And that all day long tomorrow I am going to have to spend my time nailing them because they are distracting me from chores or work? (trying to look stern)

him: I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to!

me: You know, you really make it hard to get mad at you when you are such a cartoon! (couldn't hold out with Officially Annoyed mode, I had to break out laughing)

him: We-elllll..... (flustered and flailing in a Samantha Bewitched kind of "well")

Then I went to help him crawl around on the floor cricket hunting. Damn speckle pattern terrazzo floor makes them hard to spot unless they jump. He went out to the patio with the bin collection to feed the turtles but I caught at least another half dozen before settling back down to my computer.

For those who aren't herpy or into reptiles, crickets can be purchased by the dozen in most pet shops. But if you have quite a few animals that eat them it's easier to just get a case. And if you REALLY have a lot of animals that eat them it's more economical to just raise them after getting a case or two as a starter colony. I used to raise them myself for the nine turtles but since we moved to the townhouse and then to here I haven't had time to go back to cricket farming. I've been wanting to lately, and he's been wanting to feed the pets crickets for a change instead of pellet type food. We'd vaguely discussed my starting the cricket colony after fencing in the yard and better settling the turtles. I guess he felt like getting them some crickets as treat today or something so he comes home with a case of medium to small crickets. (Adult crickets have too-hard shells and it can lead to the animals getting constipated so we prefer giving them more smaller ones instead. Mmmm! Nice and tender!)

The case is a cardboard box with screened sides for air circulation and with egg crates stacked inside for the crickets to climb around on. There is usually a piece of potato in there to serve as water/food while the crickets are in transit from wholesalers to pet shop, then from pet shop to to buyer.

He knows better than to leave a cricket case inside the house. He's supposed to put it outside so if there are any escapees before I can transfer them to the cricket farm set-up, they will just hop away into the lawn. But like his checking account register, his absent-mindedness gets the better of him sometimes.

[...]