Crickets

I grew up in Michigan. Theres a lot of crickets in Michigan. They make pretty noises in the summer and are fun pets. You can find them under just about anything. Michigan crickets look like this:
Cute and harmless. I remember keeping them as pets. And keeping them as dinner for various other pets too. I never thought I would be scared of crickets.

I'm not scared of much. Sure, I'll jump if someone sneaks up on me. And carnies sorta freak me out, but I think carnies sorta freak everyone out. I don't really like needles either, but I've had my shots. It just makes my left upper arm hurt alot everytime I get one (regardless of where I'm getting the shot). But on the whole thats about it. I've never been bothered by bugs of any kind in the least before. In fact, my brother-in-law refers me to as the bee whipserer becuase I talk to yellow jackets and can stick my hand in a nest of them without getting stung (and regularily do so becuase I like hornets). Today my life changed.

I recently got a new job installing cable. This often involves running new lines under peoples houses. Most crawl spaces aren't bad. Few spiders, few roaches, few crickets, maybe a lizard or too (I love lizards, I used to let them loose inside my apartment when I lived in Hawaii to help keep the roaches down). I've been told to watch out for snakes too, but have yet to see one. None of these things bother me. Brown recluses worry me a bit just becuase I've seen what they can do, but I have yet to see one. Today though, I was scared.

I entered a crawlspace of a very old house. I was expecting the usual scattering of roaches that I see in such houses, when I turned on my flashlight and began to crawl around. But there were no roaches to be found. Shining my light on one of the walls of the foundation I saw the wall move. I focused my light on a spot and it slowly turned from brown/black to cement blocks. It was at this point my heart started to speed up a bit. I don't mind bugs, but I knew that what ever kind of bug this was it had to be a whole fucking lot of em. I figured "live and let live" so I went on about my job ignoring the movement on the walls. I reached up to grab my line out from between two floor joists where I had sent it down and thats when it started to get creepy. Something started crawling down my arm. Then more somethings. Then it was swarming. My arm had joined the crawling mass that wasn't just on the walls but apparently all thru the floor joists as well. Now I had a good visual. This is what they looked like:
There were thousands of them. And they were engulfing me. Not biting. Just covering. They were in my hair. On my back. My arms. My legs. My ears. I was covered. The biggest ones were about 2" tall and 3" around. The smaller ones were about 1/2" tall and 1" around. When I moved, they moved. I'd never seen a cricket that looked like that before. The cave cricket is what they are called apparently. Why their were so many under this house is beyond me. But as I finished my work underneath the house, they continued to use me as just another surface area. Oddly enough, there was never any on the sand floor. As soon as I crawled out the access panel it was like going thru a car wash. The light hit them and they jumped back inside. I now have added cave crickets to the very small list of things that freak me out.