It's not about the house.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

The Plague And I

The Kid just called back. It's not called a thermocouple after all.

He said he knew they were going to try to give me a thermocouple, so he wrote down what he wrote down specifically so that they would know not to give me that, but the Surly Plumbing Guy obviously doesn't know his ass from his elbow joint. The Kid is calling Home Despot himself, and he'll call me back.

In the meantime, I put the cicada in a cup (used the thermocouple packaging as a lid -- so at least it went to some use, anyway) and put him outside. Just after I did, Johnny came home (he's across the street still, finishing).

"Did you see the cicada on the back step?" I asked him. "It was in my office but I caught it and I put it out."

"No," he said. "What's a cicada?"

"You don't know what a cicada is? It's a green, grasshopper-like thing. It's what's making that buzzing noise out in the heat. It's like a locust--"

Oh.

"How did it get in your office?"

I truly cannot imagine. But (I shit you not) I just saw another in the dining room.

The plagues are starting...

3 comments:

Nate and Jen said...

That's no cicada. Cicadas look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tibicen_linnei.jpg The color varies, but the shape isn't what you posted.

I'm thinking what you have there is a Katydid of some sort. There are hundreds of species in North America, so I didn't want to link just one pic.

EGE said...

Huh. Guess I should have researched first. Nah, that wouldn't be very like me.

A plague of giant katydids...?

Funny. But not very biblical.

EGE said...

I just looked it up and -- while, yes, that is definitely a katydid -- it turns out katydids are more closely related to locusts than cicadas are...

All I know is: if it starts raining frogs out there I'm MOVING!