Up Close and Too Personal
Friday, May 21, 2004 @ 10:20 PM
I braved the elements earlier this evening to go out to dinner with one of my girlfriends and her daughter. When they came to pick me up, my neighbor was outside cutting his lawn. BIG mistake. As I opened the door, he smiled and waved enthusiastically. “Hi! Look, we’ve got cicadas!” I looked down on the ground to see an entourage of cicadas eagerly following the lawn mower as my neighbor mowed back and forth like he was the Pied Piper or something. My neighbor’s wife and little daughter were outside eagerly watching the cicadas zip back and forth following the hum of the lawn mower. As the cicadas realized that it wasn’t a male cicada trying to put the moves on them, one by one, they flew off…and headed straight towards me! As I ran to hop in my girlfriend’s car, my neighbors were chuckling. “Oh, they’re harmless. You should see our backyards! There are hundreds of them back there!” That’s when I told my girlfriend Yvonne to pull off. I had heard enough.
Yvonne was cruising towards Route 40 past all kinds of trees with her windows down. That’s a blatant invitation for a cicada to fly in and take over your car.
I was dreading the return trip home, so before we left the restaurant, I grabbed my keys, armed and ready to march straight to my front door. Yvonne looked at me and asked me what I was doing with my keys out. Apparently, she must’ve thought that I had forgotten that she drove. I didn’t forget, I was just trying to be on the ready.
Finally, when we arrived at my house, I was very apprehensive about walking up to the front door. I didn’t know if the cicadas were camped out in my yard, or chillin’ on the door frame. I stood there for a good 30 seconds, not sure of what to do. Should I run, open the front door and hope that there’s nothing close enough to fly into the house? Should I walk slowly and cautiously, so as not to disturb the cicadas? Or should I ask Yvonne to drop me off at BWI so that I could catch the first flight out of town? Yvonne, concerned, sent her daughter Kyra to open the door for me. I asked Kyra if she saw any cicadas on my front door; she told me that she didn’t, and then she waited for me to open the door. She’s such a sweetie pie.
Later on, my sister Shani called to tell me that she read my weblog and thought it was hilarious. She was laughing uncontrollably, which to me, indicated that she was laughing at me, and not at my journal writings. I asked Shani how many cicadas had she seen thus far; she said she’s seen one cicada shell. Okay, now she’s disqualified. I’ve seen cicadas hanging from trees, flying around, landing on my shoulder, waving at people, chilling on lamp posts, directing traffic in parking lots, doing the cha-cha slide on the sidewalk, you name it. I’ve seen a few dozen cicadas to her one…and she has the nerve to laugh at me.
And anyway, why is Shani perpetrating now like she isn’t afraid of bugs? This is the girl who used to scream when she found a cricket in the laundry basket. She’s trying to laugh at me? That’s a shame and a half.
Wait until a cicada lands on her shoulder. I bet she won’t be laughing then.
Kimberly Shorter 