The Garage Incident
12/27/1

Saturday morning after we helped an older couple move, I ran by the house with my brother-in-law and picked up something.

When I walked by the cricket�s terrarium, I noticed that there was the carcass of a small cricket and the male cricket was standing next to it.

Ooh, I was mad at the crickets.

Later that night, I took them out to the garage. The adult female and adult male were hanging out. I took the top off the terrarium and set it down. They could jump out and be free.

...

It was back in October when the first cricket was caught. I gave him a piece of carrot and he immediately started eating it. Crickets just live hungry it seems. He was a young cricket and didn�t know how to sing yet. Good, I say with the benefit of hindsight.

A few weeks after that, an adult female cricket showed up and she got to be the little man�s friend. They lived in the log and all was good. She, like the young male, ate voraciously for a few days, but then settled down when she realized the food supply was constant.

A week later, or so, the adult male cricket showed up when Aisai was sorting clothes. In he went.

This was before I knew that if you put two males together they�d kill each other.

The adult male cricket killed the young male cricket. There were no remains to his death that we could see so we assumed that they ate him.

A few days later I read that you don�t put the males together. So I can�t really blame Mr. Cricket for killing the little man. It was his nature.

A few weeks ago, the little female showed up. I might have my story wrong...maybe she was in the laundry. I forget. You can probably check the older stuffo and find out. She gets to live in the cricket condo with the old gal and guy.

...

Aisai was out in the garage late on Christmas Eve and said, �They are still in there.� It seems that the crickets had gotten used to getting food from me and knew that if they just stayed there, more food would come.

�Eek, you�ve got to see this.�

I came to where Aisai was and looked down into the open topped terrarium. All three crickets were there.

Oops.

I took them in and threw away the body of the young male that they had stored in their log for those months. Three blobs of carrot baby food and stick the terrarium under the lamp in the aquarium.

The baby girl ate. The male and the adult female stood on their log and arched their backs toward the heat.

The cold had changed the adult female. She use to have no wings and her ovipositor was only about 7 mm long. Now it was more like 20 mm long, her body was less fat and sleeker, and she had wings down her entire body. The cold was a signal to lay some eggs.

I gave them a pinecone so they could get closer to the light and they love it.

They are still eating that carrot baby food I got for them about 3 weeks ago. They aren�t as fat as they were before they went into the garage. At that time, the adults were absolutely obese. Now they look strong and very mature. The little cricket, she�s still the same size.

Whoever said they only lived two months was wrong. It looks like I could keep them going for at least 3 to 6 months by the look of it. But they better hurry up and die...

On January 19th, I plan to go to Birmingham to a reptile show and get myself an ornate horned frog. And the aquarium is his.

Now, if the crickets are still around, they�ll end up on a book shelf upstairs in the computer room.

I won�t feed them to the frog like I threatened to.

I feel a sense of obligation to them. They are very dependant on me, the little morons. The garage incident proved that.