You may have seen one of my recent Wordless Wednesday posts where I alluded to an event that happened over Father’s Day weekend. I don’t care if they’re essentially harmless. Cicadas are the most frightening bugs I’ve ever seen without the safety net of a 2-inch thick shatterproof zoo tank.
Here are some more details from the incident:
It was our first sunny day after a long week of miserably cold and rainy June weather. We were heading out to the lake. Emma was already in her swimsuit. Music was thumping, windows were open to the warm breeze. Here, see for yourself, and please disregard Emma’s black eye. It is only her second. And I use the word “only” because she really should have had nine of these by now given her deadly combination of fearlessness, immature coordination, and really bad luck.
Looks like a good time, right? So imagine that you’re cruising along the highway, enjoying life, drinking your coffee, singing angsty pop songs. And then you hear a scream. The most blood-curdling scream you’ve ever heard. Worse than the scream you made when you watched the teenage couple from Psycho II sneak into the basement of the Bates Motel and run into Mother.
You turn around and you see a giant cicada on your little one’s carseat.
It’s the size of your fist and it’s crawling towards her. And your eldest daughter is watching the whole thing go down, screaming her head off. And now the baby is screaming because she doesn’t know what’s going on but screaming is contagious.
Thankfully, you’re a mom. You know what to do. You tell everyone to calm down, that it’s just a bug. And you gently try to swish it out the window.
That is not what I did.
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