I Ordered Crickets. I Received Anarchy. (Patreon)

*Prefacing this with no, no one has ever accused me of making great life choices.

Every mid summer for the past couple years, I go to the local DIY store and buy a couple suzumushi (bell crickets). They have the most enchanting cry, like a silvery liquid-glass trill✨. They don't "chirp" so much as "ring." It's ethereal. It's magical! Earning their names, they sound like tiny little bells🛎️. Add to that, they are just so fun to watch. For a month or two, the males find a potential mate, hold up their pretty cellophane wings, and energetically and persistently rin rin rin! Look at me! Hear my song! Be my girlfriend!

Nearby, the females nosh lazily on cucumber and eggplant and for all intents and purposes pay no attention to the fellas at all. But I guess they do pay attention at some point, because by the end of the season they're laying eggs. So...

Anyway. Let's back up on second. I realized I have this huge character flaw. I really, really like taking care of things. Animals, children, adults who should actually be taking care of themselves. Even bugs! So six months of living along and I realize I've been missing that "taking care of" thing I have. Very unfortunately, I'm not in a position to get a cat or dog or even rat at the moment. Seriously, a dog would cure me right up. Hey, buddy! Want to go for a walk? However, "brilliant me" gets an idea💡✨. Why not buy some bell crickets🦗? And it's the right season, too.

Only. The place I usually buy them refurbished and got rid of all living creatures 😢. Go to a pet store. Sorry. Sold out. Won't get anymore in. Another. Same story. I'm super bummed out. But then I remember this new fangled thing called 🔥The Internet🔥.

Lo and behold, there are such places! You can order online and they'll ship right to you. So my first mistake was thinking: If 5 suzumushi re delightful...then 22 will be EVEN BETTER! Because that logic always works.

My university professor who taught a whole class on the law of diminishing returns would absolutely not be happy with me right now. Or my fountain pen, book, or journal collection. <--an aside: I'd argue I AM happier with so many of those, though. Where was I? I thought it was solid logic. I really did.

I ordered.

Then immediately regretted it. Hold up. It's summer. It's hot. How will they be shipped? Oh god. What if when they arrive, I open a box of ... 22 dead crickets. The horror. I'll never recover. What did I do?!

But did I cancel the order. No. No. I didn't. Cash on delivery. I put the money by the door.

I did get a message with tracking and telling me they'd be at my place in the morning of last Wednesday. I prayed. I prayed to the cricket god and all my ancestors. Please, don't deliver a box of dead crickets.

Wednesday. I'm a nervous wreck. Around 10, the doorbell rings. I answer. Adorable delivery guy has the box with suzumushi written all over it. I hear nothing. My first words:

Are they dead?

He smiles, They were singing at me until a few minutes ago. Maybe okay?

Just my luck. They made the long journey, holding out for as long as they could until just few minutes okay. The heat was too much. They got too thirty. This a Box 'o' Cricket Corpses💀.

I've already prepared a nice cage for them, a veritable bell cricket paradise (just sayin'). There's leaf litter, flowers, drift wood, places to hide, two kinds of dirt. And it's all arranged beautifully.

I carefully take the box into the dining room. Oh look.

12 males (+2) and 10 females (+2)...the extras in case of catastrophe, I guess. Food, too. How kind.

I oh-so-carefully open the box.

It's immediate anarchy.

This isn't all of them. This is all that remained as I grabbed my phone. It was like cricket explosion. My first thought was "very clever with the eggplant"! Store. It's wedged in there so it can't hurt any bugs and it provides food and something to hang on to.

Verdict: No dead crickets. Not a single on. Quite the opposite: 26 VERY excited crickets, hepped up on eggplant, and wanting to stretch their legs. That's okay. I'll just tip the box into the cage and successfully transfer them. Yay! New pets!

Except...no...

Here's the thing about crickets, they cling to whatever surface they want. And you can scoop one gently up and try and put it somewhere else, but it just stays on your hand until it decides to something really exciting like run up your arm.

I even got BIT by one who thought my finger was more delicious eggplant. It didn't hurt. Just a little shocked. Another thing to keep in mind, the air conditioner was on in this room... mistake # I-don't-know-at-this-point. I'm sweating, which evidently is like crack to bell crickets, because the ones who are running up my arms stop long enough to lick then run around some more.

The above guy is actually licking my sweat from his antennae. Perv.

Okay. Okay. So I'm trying not hurt any of them, not to lose any of them, and just get them moved into their fancy new abode. Why is this so hard? It's high comedy.

I say out loud, "Well, little fellas, at least you can't jump." But I was wrong. One jumps on my shirt. Oh god. Black cricket. Black shirt. Why am I wearing black?

Cue: thirty minute later and I finally manage to get them all in their new home. Check the box, the table, the floor, my shirt, my hair. Yeah. I'm pretty squicked out at this point.

But I'm happy again. No corpses. All fine and seemingly un-traumatized by the trip.

Then something else happens that I didn't really think through. If 3 bell crickets are charmingly soothing and magical in their ringing...that doesn't scale up. Only the males make any sounds, so now I have 14 crickets all competing for the ladies' attention, full throttle. And, here's another not completely thought out part: crickets are nocturnal. I live basically in one long room. I keep the air on at night because it gets too stiflingly hot. So I can't just put them in another room while I sleep. Then I'd wake to a bunch of dead crickets.

So now I have 14 suzumushi, singing love songs all night long long. Today is Saturday. It's only been three nights, but they have infiltrated my dreams. I dream of all kinds of screaming, phones ringing, WEE-OOO WEE-OOO sirens, ...you name it. And right now, noon, while I'm working and writing this, the cute little bastards are all sleeping peacefully. 🥲

Here's just one singing. Charming ✨.

Here, each fella targets some lovely lady and croons to her. But they're taking turns. NOT ALL AT ONCE like what happens at night. Sorry. Am I yelling. I might be losing my hearing.

Meanwhile, the ladies are like: Did you say fresh eggplant?

So my sanity aside, they are super cute.

Oh god.

I just had another not-thought-out thought that didn't occur to me until now. So, if even half the females lay eggs (and it won't be half, it will be ALL), and those eggs hatch next late spring...exactly HOW MANY SUZUMUSHI WILL I HAVE next summer?

What did I do?

Here: nice photo. They like this leaf.