Assisted Procrastination

It’s that time of year again. You know, the time where you get all comfy on the couch with a bowl of ice cream, flip on a movie, and prepare to relax only to be interrupted by the chirping of a cricket somewhere in the vicinity. Unfortunately, you can’t find it because every time you move, he stops chirping. You freeze until he chirps again and resume the hunt. I’m convinced this is some sort of Chinese torture. It’s almost as bad as the dying smoke alarm battery chirping every 90 seconds at 2am – don’t get me started.

So anyway, the other evening, DH headed downstairs to relax for the evening with me not far behind. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was greeted by a cricket. Since I was still upstairs, there was an exchange that amounted to DH announcing the cricket’s presence, me telling him to kill it, him recoiling at that proposal, followed by me coming down the stairs to offer assistance. Apparently, there is some notion of crickets being good luck (really?? does this hold true for water-boarding as well?), not to mention that killing a cricket is just crunchy-guts-gross with a residual mess to clean. No, thank you.

I reached the bottom of the stairs to find DH attempting to herd the cricket into a box. He’d poke it with a piece of styrofoam (yes, styrofoam. I know it kills the environment and makes the cats yack. It came with the box. I didn’t buy it!). The cricket would jump just short of the box so he’d move the box just a bit farther away and try again just to watch it jump over the box. A grand plan thwarted only by the stubbornness of a now ill-fated cricket. DH gave up and I came up with a New, Spectacular, and Undeniably Perfect Plan! A plan that would offer adventure, rid us of the cricket and leave no mess!

We moved the gate and DH herded the cricket into the rec room then replaced the gate while I quickly darted to the cage to release the ferrets! They were sound asleep, but I had more than enough energy for all of us – after all, my plan was PERFECT! This is nature! The animals eat the bugs – it’s all so very Lion King, Circle Of Life!

So here I am with Blue half asleep and lazily pointed toward a cricket frozen in the corner of the room. I continue to poke him (uninterested) toward the cricket while DH resumes the prodding with the styrofoam. And then it happens! The cricket jumps and Blue dives in for the kill! He grabs the cricket in his teeth and I turn away hoping the carnage ends quickly. I’m cheering and recoiling all at the same time. In my head, I hear that line from Mortal Combat, when the battle has been won and the victor remains to “Finish Him!” in some horrific yet deserved act of brutality. I listen to DH giving the play-by-play until I hear that horrible phrase. “He’s leaving. Blue is leaving” Oh no NO! That is NOT part of The Plan!

Ye, the stupid ferret walked away to go play with a bag. He left the cricket right where he found it.

But wait! It’s not over yet!  I quickly go to grab the other ferret! Razz hasn’t had her chance. She’s a picky eater and not likely to do much better than Blue, but she’s worth a shot. Unfortunately, we can no longer get the cricket to jump – it has 2 broken back legs. My plan is unraveling and things are looking futile. Razz is uninterested in the bug. Really, she’d just like for someone to get her a treat. She’s become a bit neurotic about the treats. Again, don’t get me started.

With our hopes dashed, I help DH get the cricket into the box (remember the original plan?) and he promptly disposes of it outside. I hope the wounds were minimal enough that the cricket sits outside and offers a warning to others – telling them of the terrors that await them inside. I think I speak for us all when I say that no one in the house wants to go through that again.

This entry was posted on October 13, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.