Cricket
I hadn’t thought about it before, but the word cricket connotes many different things. There are the crickets (that are famous in Utah) – actually – they call them Mormon crickets. These creepy locusts were named for the prominent role they played in the Miracle of the Gulls, after the Mormon settlers in Utah encountered them while pushing westward. Apparently, in 1848 a huge infestation of the buggies erupted at the beginning of the Mormon’s second harvest season. The miracle is that zillions of seagulls descended from the heavens to eat the trillions of locusts, thus saving the lives of the badass pioneers. I bet the covered wagons were covered in a lot more than canvas. Maybe that’s how whitewashing happened. Things they never discuss in Utah history. These dudes can grow up to 3 inches in length, and even though they can’t fly, they can walk up to 1.5 miles a day. Ick. Super ick.
Changing the subject completely, there is also the sport of cricket. Also known as England’s national summer sport, it is a game where guys hit balls with sticks and run around and fans yell, and points are made. Sort of like every other game – polo, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, quidditch, squash, soccer. I don’t know very much about the sport of cricket, other than they wear dorky outfits and that the bat looks like an American baseball bat that got run over by a steam-roller, but I like it better than the first example of cricket.
Lest we forget, there is also a cut-rate cell-phone carrier named Cricket.
There is also that terrible moment, that incredibly embarrassing silence when a comedian bombs, someone farts in church, laughing out loud at a funeral, ending a work call with ‘I love you”, or dropping your cell phone into a toilet. You know that pregnant, awful, awkward silence? Yep – otherwise known as ‘crickets’.
My favorite thought about crickets is summer evenings in Salt Lake City. Winter is long in Utah, and there is great joy when the crickets start their sweet song in the springtime, with quickly repeating chirps, in a choir of comfort. We would hear them while camping, or hanging out in the park, or sleeping outside. As we got older, we would sit together on the deck in the evenings and listen to the cricket song. In mid-summer, the sound was loud, constant and cheery. I was in my 30’s before I learned that the slower the cricket song is, the colder it is getting outside, and the nearer it is to fall. At the very end of summer, right before it freezes, the cricket song is low and slow, and then comes to a complete stop. Then the snow starts falling again.
But the other day, in the country’s second biggest mall, I learned to call crickets a ‘snack’. There we were, son and his son, his wife and her mom, as we navigated this enormous building of fun. Arthur loves the bright lights, the fountains, the people, the other children. He giggles and claps and squeals in delight. He is now pulling himself up to standing and has graduated to a bigger car seat. Life is moving quickly for this little guy, and for us!
My son led me into a beef jerky shop. But it wasn’t just beef. It was alligator, camel, ostrich, frog, fish, beef, elk, deer, buffalo – almost anything you can imagine. They have dried scorpions in tequila-flavored lollipops. They have peppers that are guaranteed to melt your face clean off, and samples of all kinds of ‘delicacies’, but my son opted to buy the dried and spiced crickets for our snacking enjoyment. My son and his mother-in-law were, by far, the bravest – each popping a critter into their mouths without a moment’s hesitation. My daughter-in-law and I were much more discerning. I finally caved in, and placed a dried bug between my back molars and crunched it up. Honestly – it tasted a lot like a Cheeto. My lovely DIL followed my lead, and we all completed the cricket ingestion initiation. Not too bad, all things considered, and a small price to pay for such a fun day with the fam! Oh wait – is that a leg still tickling my throat?
