July 19, 2006

Forget sleeping with the fishes… How about showering with the crickets?

For some reason I've just been exhausted lately. I can't seem to get my ass into bed to fall asleep. I tend to fall asleep on the couch then realize I need to clean up, from dinner, and clean and moisturize my face. By that time I'm awake and ready to scrub bathrooms and clean. But I can't because I would wake up Mini Red.

I tend to be on the nocturnal side but not as much as when I was younger. I would sleep til noon after staying up til 3am. Now a days I'm still up just not as late and 9am is sleeping in for me. I'm afraid I'll miss the day. This is especially true when I go to the beach. I love getting up at 6am and going biking, with Dad, down the boardwalk and picking up hot donuts on the way home. Then sitting on the beach reading until it's time for Happy Hour. Maybe a nap somewhere in there too!

This morning I hit the snooze for an hour and was still dragging around. I got in the shower and when I looked down at the cleaning scrub brush I keep in my shower something moved. Aaaahhhh! Damnit! It's one of those crickets. I hopped out and screamed for Mini Red.

Mini Red: "What Mom?"

Red: "I found that cricket that got loose! They always end up in my shower."

Mini Red: "Here's the tube. I just finished feeding Kima."

Red: "Is it empty?"

Mini Red: "Yeah"

Red: " No it isn't, I see one in there and I'm not letting another one loose, with me naked, in this shower."
Mini Red runs off and comes back quickly. I check again to make sure the tube is empty before opening it to capture the loose cricket in my shower. Mini Red takes the tube and feeds the cricket to Kima.

I finish my shower and I assure you I'm awake now.

Yes, I own a Bearded Dragon, and I love her, but the crickets creep me out. This is why we have a very nice little system for storing the crickets and capturing them in these tubes to then feed to Kima. This doesn't mean that every once-in-a-while there aren't escapees.

The cricket I found this morning got loose maybe a month ago. Mini Red was feeding Kima one morning and calls to me because one got loose and she had it trapped. She told me the tube was empty and I didn't check before handing it over to her to capture the loose cricket. She was WRONG! We now have two loose… Oye! I quickly grabbed the gardening gloves and picked up the one I could see and fed it to Kima. The other one was nowhere to be found. SHIT! This means I will find it in my shower one morning. I found one in the shower once before but we never knew one had escaped.

I understand this might happen but when these bugs are loose in your home and you find it when you least expect it and naked on top of that… It tends to freak you out a bit.