The Spider Cricket
Something that appears in almost all of my manuscripts is some kind of terrible bug (I don't know why, really... I don't do it on purpose.) I just got comments back on the manuscript I'm revising and one question was: Should I know what a spider cricket is? And the answer is: Yes. Yes, you must know. And so, here are ten things about the spider cricket.
1. Supposedly they live in most states across the east coast but I have only seen them in Virginia. (I would check this fact except when you google ‘spider cricket’ a giant far-too-close picture will pop up on the screen and give you the shakes for the rest of the day – do it – I dare you.)
2. When you see a baby you’re like, okay, I can deal with these, they’re not so bad. But then you’ll meet the Momma and you’ll be like – NEVERMIND.
3. They look like aliens, with the body of a spider, and back legs of a cricket.
4. They don’t make cricket noises and they don’t spin webs. They are a confused species.
5. If you try to catch one they will see you coming and bajoing in all directions at the same time – hitting you in the face – brushing against your legs – until you just give up and run for the hills.
6. I once found one in my 90lb dog’s bowl happily munching away. That guy gets no respect.
7. Once when my sweet brother was visiting, he asked to mow our lawn. I made him retrieve the lawn mower from our shed with no warning that it was home to approximately one billion spider crickets all living in a happy community with their own middle schools and rec centers. Payback for that time he put a book about tarantulas under my pillow.
8. If you see one - just know – there are lots more.
9. They are the whole reason I take one stair at a time into my basement, freezing and assessing my surroundings, before moving onto the next like a crazed lunatic. They are probably also the reason I don’t do laundry much (yes, yes…let’s go with that.).
10. Once the air gets frosty and the leaves stop falling, they go away. Except for that one Momma spider cricket that manages to outlive the rest, waiting in silence for the perfect moment to bajoing out of hiding and flatten the human who has finally let her guard down. (Why is that human always me?)
