The Mutant Cricket

It's funny the stories your brain can create when half asleep. 3am this morning I was rudely awakened by a very loud trilling noise. Within a minute I was about to drift back to sleep when the trill resonated within the room again.

TRRRRRILLLLLLLLL

WHAT was that? And where was it coming from? It seemed like it was from the left side of the room near the bathroom. It only seemed to sound every 30-60 seconds, leading me to believe it was an electronic device. Maybe Danno's ipod or his phone?

TRRRRRILLLLLLLLL

No, it definitely wasn't electronic in origin. It almost sounded like a...cricket.

TRRRRRILLLLLLLLL

I had never heard a cricket make such a loud or long noise. In my cricket-listening experience, their chirps were short and rapid, not long and loud like this one. But then most of the crickets I heard were during the summer, when it was hot. This was late October and it was cold outside.

TRRRRRILLLLLLLLL


Wow that was loud. Maybe it was a mutant cricket, big and black, at least 3 inches long (the average field cricket is 1/2" to 1" in length). I laid there and wondered how he got in. I was at the Ecology Center on Thursday exploring the woods and prairie with a group of kindergarten-aged children. Did he slip into a pocket while I was outside? When I returned home that day, I threw my uniform into the laundry hamper, which, incidentally sits on the left side of the room near the bathroom. But how could I have slept through him trilling Thursday night? And how in the world would I have not noticed a huge cricket like that jumping into my pocket? I could feel ticks crawling across my skin. Surely I would have noticed that behemoth of an insect jumping on me.

I pictured the cricket on the bathroom window, inside looking out, or maybe he was on the mirror. After another ear-splitting trill, I jumped up and turned the light on and all fell silent. Not another sound was heard. I laid down and stared up at the light that was burning through my pupils into my retina. I was not going to be able to sleep with a light blaring down on me.

I got up and turned the bathroom light on. That was better although there was still a light on in the room. But at least I could close my eyes and not have the light shining through my eyelids. As I laid there, I swore I could hear the patter of the enormous feet that belonged to that mutant cricket. He was on the mirror, tapping the lights with his long antennae. He was looking for something to eat, he was...

I jumped up and looked in the bathroom. No enormous cricket crawling on the window or tapping the lights above the mirror. I left the light on and closed the door. Not 5 minutes later I heard another trill, although the closed door brought the decibel level down to a manageable setting. The next time I looked at the clock it was 4 am.

That mutant cricket managed to steal an hour's worth of sleep from me.