Rampant

Jaws is on my balcony.  Mandibulous Maximus.  And it won't leave.  It is a cricket, a giant Chinese cricket.  I hate crickets.  For some reason we have three.

Giant Chinese Cricket.  This one the boys named BIG BOY.  He is indeed large but not man-eating like Jaws.

Eli calls the main cricket in question Chomper.  Finn calls him Muncher.  I call him Kujo.  I want it dead.  It wants me dead. 

Jaws/Chomper/Muncher/Kujo is sitting on the balcony ready to pounce and kill me I just know it.  You might think this is an irrational fear, but it's not.  Kujo has dagger sharp jaws.  You come near his cage and this horrible death bug pounces to the bamboo bars like a creature out of the movie Alien.  It's not natural.

We got Jaws/Chomper /Muncher/Kujo--we'll call the beast JCMK--at the She Li He pet market in South Beijing.  She Li He is larger than a Super Walmart and sells birds and fish and turtles and chinchilla and emperor scorpions and crickets.  Lots of crickets.  There were stalls that sold nothing but crickets.  Walking by a cricket stall is like walking by Dodger stadium after a winning run is scored.  Only louder.  A winning cricket can make a sound louder than a gas-powered lawn mower. 

I say winning because cricket sports are popular in China.  Yes, you read that correctly:  cricket sports.  There are regular cricket "singing" contests.  I wondered how anyone can call the incessantly loud and annoying chirp-buzz loop singing.  Then I heard Beijing Opera. (Author looks over shoulder once again for mobile execution van.)

Cricket fighting is also popular on both legally and an extra-legally.  Legal fights are broadcast onto giant TV screens.  Illegal fights occur in back alleys.  Potential cricket champs are fed diets of duck and liver and high-quality meats.  Potential champs are trained and sometimes given cricket steroids.  Potential champs will sell for thousands of dollars, for a creature that lives at most 100 days.

JCMK is clearly a fighting cricket.  He was a gift to Eli from a man who owns a cricket stall in She Li He.  I thought at first the man gave us the cricket because he liked us.  Now I know he wants us dead. 

Cricket Stall at She Li Yuan.  Each one of those cages and balls inside and outside of the store has one large, loud cricket.  The owner has to drink beer on the job to survive it.

Well, that explains how we got one cricket.  How did we fall down the rabbit hole and end up with three?  Mea culpa, I fell in love with the little cricket cages.  They make great decorations/Christmas ornaments.  So I bought two more empty cages.  I guess my traveler's Mandarin (see blog post 10 Years) did not adequately convey that I wanted only the cages because they came complete with two more horrible, jaw-clacking buzzing demons, the first "Big Boy" the size of my hand and his compatriot "Thornback" who has a huge sword-thingy poking out of its rear-end.

They boys grabbed the cages and happily skipped away before I could even return the wicked beasts.  The thought of having these creatures in my house gave me a nervous tick.  I felt like I was licking a thousand wooden spoons at once.  My pulse quickened and my mouth started to blur with pre-vomit salivation.

Ok.  Calm down, I thought.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Okay.  I can do this.  I can embrace the cricket.  I can.  Yes I can.  I have embraced countless other bugs and mud and weapons (sort of) and boys hurling themselves off too-tall things and boys beating each other and fart contests.  Crickets should be no problem, right?

So there I sat holding BIG BOY while bouncing though Beijing in a motorcycle sidecar.  I stared at him trying to appreciate his extraordinarily delicate limbs and curious antennae and cute eyeballs.  I can do this I thought.  Yes I can. 

We brought them home and fed them lychee and cucumber and smelly melon (that's a direct translation) and carrots.  JCMK ripped the food from our hands and tore through it like a starved hyena rips at a carcass.  Then he jumped on the bars and began hissing for more.  I felt faint just being near JCMK.

The boys insisted that the crickets sleep in their room, apparently unaware that crickets don't sleep, rather they buzz loudly and furiously for mates that--in JCMK, Big Boy, and Thorn Back's cases--will never come.  The night began quiet enough.  The boys were sound asleep when we heard what we thought was a broken washing machine.  You know, the thump, thump, thump when your machine is off-balance, coupled with the squeak of a breaking fan belt.  I actually ran in to check the washing machine.  Not it.  Eli then padded out of his room: "Mom, what's that noise?"  We realized not only did we have a fighting cricket, we had a rock star. 

The next morning our Ayi (that's maid/nanny in Chinese.  Everyone has an Ayi in China.   It's, like, compulsory.) was clutching her finger and warned us that (JCMK) bites.  I decide I had to get rid of him.  The problem was how?  Austin was opposed to JCMK's disposal:  "But the boys like him!"  I reminded my dear husband that he wants to dispose of our dog, Ruby, and they like her much more than the death cricket.  I could not possibly squash the thing because I die just thinking about the crunching sound it would make.  And the guts I would have to clean.  (Blurry salivation begins.)

It turns out that our dog Ruby forced the hand. Ruby is our eight-pound wiener dog who thinks she is eighty pounds.  Or 800 pounds.  On two occasions she tried to attack a bear, a GRIZZLY bear.  JCMK was no match for Super Ruby.  She swatted down his cage and chewed it to pieces.  The only problem was that JCMK escaped.  Admist much ear-piercing screams (who knew I could scream like a girl!!!!!!!???????) Austin managed to hurl JCMK out onto the balcony and slam shut the glass sliding doors.

Ruby:  Pest or Pest Control?

Ok.  Problem solved.  Only we can never use our balcony again, at least until the death cricket leaves.  Only he won't leave.  He was happily snacking on Ruby turds--we have a doggy pee/poo pad since we live 28 floors up and can't fathom taking her for 10 walks a day.  Now I have even more reason to dislike crickets and, is that fucking cricket staring at me?

Things only got worse because I had to sleep on the couch that night.  The couch that sits in front of the glass curtain that gives way to the balcony.  That same balcony where JCMK was perched, ready to kill me.   I couldn't sleep knowing that thing was out there, but there was nowhere else to sleep.  My in-laws had the guest bedroom and Austin was running to the john every 20 minutes for a round of toilet Olympics--what's worse death by cricket or THE VAN INCIDENT**** revisited?  Close call.

Again, I had to calm myself.  Bring in the forces of reason.  Who knew fear could be so irrational?  I mantra:  "I AM BIGGER THAN THE CRICKET. I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN THE CRICKET. THE CRICKET CAN'T HURT ME."  I said this a million times until I finally dropped into sleep.

The next morning the boys were peering out onto the balcony.  They bravely stepped out to survey all the corners and confirmed that JCMK was gone.  We had released the scourge of the insect world to run rampant in Beijing.  Good riddance.

***For those of you who have never heard a Sheppard barf, it is traumatizing.  Austin had a particularly violent bout of the vomits in Myanmar in a van.  Nobody within one square mile of that van will ever forget that day.