Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Life Span of a Cricket

The summer of 2001 I visited my mother at her home by Lake Texoma and she suggested that I stay there and use her home as a place to come to between my travels. Little did either of us know that I would stay for nine years! I did travel but not as much as I had planned.
Sometime in September of that year we heard a cricket chirping inside the house and although we looked everywhere, including in the basement and upstairs, we could never find it. And little by little, the chirps came less frequently.
One day after we heard one sad little chirp, I said, “I wonder what the life span of a cricket is. This one seems to be hanging on quite a long time for such a small insect.”
It didn’t occur to either of us to look it up in one of Mother’s reference books. The days went by and once in a while we would hear a chirp and wonder where it was.
Gradually we began to forget the cricket and life went on for us. One afternoon I went upstairs and as I started to enter my bedroom, I heard the cricket chirp loud and clear from the ceiling. I looked up and burst out laughing.
Mother yelled from downstairs and wanted to know what was so funny.
I found the cricket,” I said.
Where is it?” she asked.
It’s on the ceiling but it’s not a cricket. However it is dying.”
So, what is it?”
The battery in the smoke alarm.”

(Just for reference, eventually I did google crickets and the life span of an adult cricket is three months.)

4 comments:

Marja said...

Oh, that's funny, especially since it went on for so long. Thanks for sharing and brightening my day!

Palmaltas said...

And thank you, Marja. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Marilyn Levinson said...

That is so funny. I would do the same—not bother to check.

Palmaltas said...

Thanks, Marilyn! It just never occurred to us that the sound could be anything other than a cricket.