DAWN OF THE CICADA

On Saturday I noted my first encounter with these big, winged, ugly, stupid stupid stupid bugs. Walking back from watching Sopranos on Sunday, the damned things were all over the place. I counted eight or nine before losing count. About a third were dead on the ground, stepped on or run over by the occasional bicycle. I managed to avoid any shoe-plastic to creepy-wing contact.

This morning, I saw at least a half-dozen on the five-block walk to the Metro. This afternoon, leaving the office, more on the concrete. Aren't these supposed to be tree creatures?

Then, sitting down at a Dupont Circle sushi bar -- with no warning at all -- Pfeiffer's face went blank, and he just pointed at me, stepping back. Immediately, I knew, flung it off, and leaped up out of my seat. Climbing up my John Thune '02 (better luck this time!) T-shirt was a giant cicada. No idea when it landed or where it crawled from. For me it was at least as big a jump as the gigantic flying cockroach that landed on my knee in Stanley on the far side of Hong Kong island in 1995.

I hate bugs.

We stood there just watching it, as the damned thing struggled in the window sill, trying to get back on its feet. After what seemed like minutes and minutes -- though surely was only minutes -- the cicada got its bearing. And then just sat there. Expectantly we watched it, before deciding to take another table -- until the guy who worked there brought over a big cloth napkin, picked up Mr. Brood X and then presumably left him outside, unharmed.

I may have drank nearly a fifth of hard liquor over the course of the evening, but that guy was a bigger man than me.

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posted by WWB at 11:30 PM |