Halloween aftermath

With Halloween out of the way I thought I was all done with spooky things.  November is for turkeys and pilgrims and overeating, none of which are too spooky.  Unless that turkey is alive and chasing you.  However. . . spooky is what I've dealt with all week.

I am terrified of crickets.  They are scarier than spiders.  Spiders are creepy but most of them just crawl and I can get close enough to them to kill them without them touching me because they just crawl.  Crickets. . . jump.  I don't want them to touch me and I can't get close enough to kill them because I have this irrational fear they will attack my face.  So I usually solicit the help of some wonderful person to dispose of the beast.

Just look at this guy.  I think I just peed a little.

Just kidding, but barely.

I have a couple of these bad boys living just outside my door and I do not like them.  They have tried to follow me inside before, and with my ninja skills and my amazing good looks (or something) I've managed to keep them out.  But Monday afternoon as I sat at this very laptop typing a paper about facebook killing social competence in adolescents using my studies in a preschool as proof (don't ask, weird assignment), I heard an occasional ticking noise behind me.  I ignored it at first, assuming something was clinking in the dishwasher.  After twenty-three minutes the wash cycle ended but the clicking did not.  I turned around.  Behind me, staring up with beady black eyes, was a large cricket

It looked like this.

I didn't like it.

I cannot confirm or deny that I may or may not have screamed.

I picked up Paul's shoe and whacked it.  It's bigger than mine so I could maintain some distance.

I lived.  Barely.

Can't say the same for the cricket.

"Ha ha!" I thought.  That must have been my Halloween scare, just a day late, but I was wrong.  Wednesday I walked into my dark apartment after morning classes and closed the door.  It smelled funny, like old shoes and vomit.  Like someone vomited in an old shoe. I sat my backpack down before hearing a strange noise.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  I turned on the light to this baby:

It was sitting in a pile of it's own fluids which had puddled on the counter and were dripping on the floor.  While not as scary as a devil cricket, it was much nastier to clean up.  I wrapped it in a garbage bag, laid it in a box, and drug it to the front door leaving behind me a trail of slim.  I picked it up, trying to hold it away from me and, stopping every three feet or so to set it down and pant, I walked around the house and chucked (up-chucked, nearly) this bad boy in the dumpster.

I think Halloween is officially over now.  Bring on the turkeys!