Three's Company . . .

Fall is almost here. I love Spring, blooming flowers, the much awaited green of new grass. Yep, my favorite! Fall is a close second, with the cooling nights, cooling days and turning leaves. Beautiful! Winter is not my friend. It's far too long for this Wisconsin girl. Disproportionately long compared to the other seasons, if you ask me. Summer? Hmm, summer vacation, boating, fishing, fans in the windows bringing in any hint of a cool breeze? Still not my favorite. Heat and me just don't get along too well. I tolerate it, and can even enjoy it, though, with certain accommodations. Accommodations such as: 1. Ice cream. Ice cream in the morning, ice cream in the evening, ice cream at supper time. Yummm! 2. An air conditioning unit available for days above 90 degrees or so. Some times I don't use it, just knowing it's available is comfort enough. 3. Swimming, fishing and pontooning. Out on the river has become my preferred location. 4. Extra showers. Yes ma'am, er, sir? I like to take a good shower in the morning and hose off again in the evening, right before bed. How ever can a person sleep when they are all sticky and hot and stinky? I sleep so much better when I'm clean.

The last point brings me to the subject of this post.

I arrived home from church and settled in to check my internet and watch me some Olympics. I grabbed the bucket of ice cream from the freezer, dished up and went to the sink to rinse my sticky fingers. I looked expectantly at the sink, finally seeing the too familiar jump in the sink when I started the water. I have crickets. Nope, not the sport, I don't play cricket for Pete's sake! And no, these are not pet crickets! It seems that my new apartment building is infested. Yes, infested. Like- if I set up a camera I might get a five generation picture! I hosed the beast until it drowned and maneuvered the carcass until it went down the drain. Have I mentioned that these are no ordinary crickets? Not the little noisy black ones(thankfully) but the big brown house crickets, or were they field crickets? Doesn't matter, except that they come inside and are very big. Big enough that you'd be best to take caution if you plan on squishing one of them.

Finally getting sleepy I went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. Pulling the shower curtain aside, I saw one little critter sitting on the cool porcelain. I reached over and turned on the hot water, grabbed the fly swatter that has taken permanent residence by my bathroom garbage and batted the little beast into the stream of hot water. Down the drain it went. With a sigh of relief, I turned the water to a reasonable temperature and climbed in. I'd begun to get wet when I noticed a familiar tangled shape of legs and antennae through the interior shower curtain. Ugh! I was fine with just one. But TWO? And when another cricket dropped down with the second bugger? With the running water, they were jumping for dear life! And let me tell you friends, when there are more of THEM in the shower than me? I picked up the nearest weapon I could find . . . my comb. For some reason this didn't seem to be effective. Now- lest you're all worried about this post going X rated, imagine me wearing my swimming suit, because don't we all bathe in our swimming suit? Oh, and imagine me tall, blond and skinny, okay?

Back to the point. When I realized that two of them were not going to be as easy to drown, I leaped out to grab my fly swatter friend! Standing outside of the shower (in my swimming suit of course) I batted each of the little critters, in turn, towards the scalding water now coming out of the spigot. Hey, perhaps I was playing a form of cricket? After several hits, one went swimming down the drain, followed by his little friend (or not so little?). I was free to continue my shower in peace. Alone. Boy, events like this make me glad that I live alone! How do you explain jumping around and squealing in the bathroom in the middle of the night to a roommate or spouse?

Anyone have any tips to get rid of these little beasts? I really do prefer to shower alone!

Sleep well my friends! Hey, what do you all do to survive the heat and critters?

A