What They Don’t Tell You about Cicadas

They say cicadas take over the landscape. What they don’t tell you is that not only will your tree in front be covered with “shells” — what the kids call the dry brown skin the cicadas shed — and white, newly molted bugs and mature bugs, but also the bench a few feet from the tree will look like it’s covered in bumps and blisters, and you’ll wonder if you’ll ever be able to sit on it again. And single blades of grass will be weighed down by brittle cicada shells clinging to them, not to mention individual leaves, where it looks like the insects went to seek shelter from the rain. And that one morning, your husband will come in from Shacharis and show you that because the porch light was on at night, the whole front of the house near the bulbs is now covered.

They say cicadas are big. What they don’t tell you is they’re so big, you can’t just kill them. And one evening, when you’re all dressed up, makeup and heels and the whole nine yards, and heading to the school dinner, you’ll feel something on your arm, and you’ll look down into the red — red — eyes of a cicada crawling up your bicep, and you’ll yell and your husband will tell you not to yell, he’s driving and can’t stop, and you’ll bravely grab a tissue and try to remove it without actually touching it, but you’ll be so surprised you actually got it that you’ll promptly drop the tissue between the passenger seat and driver’s seat, and meanwhile your husband is still driving, and then you’ll finally locate the tissue and the bug and hold it out the open window to fly out because the cicada is so big you literally can’t squish it (also, ewww), but the cicada will cling to the tissue so you’re holding it out the window like a white flag of surrender until you finally hit a red light and you can run out and dump the whole thing in the garbage can on the corner.

They say cicadas fly aimlessly. What they don’t tell you is they’re slow and bumbling, so you’ll get to see, again and again, cicadas in slow motion landing on your friend’s hood or your husband’s back, and even being hunted by birds who are now throwing up and dying all over the neighborhood from overindulging. And while you’re driving to a Little League game, you’ll suddenly see a blue jay swooping down to catch a cicada right in front of your windshield — and it’s all in slow motion, like hovering helicopters instead of dive-bombing planes, and you know if you hit it, it will go splat — so you’ll swerve to avoid it.

“Cooooool,” the kids will all say from the backseat, and you’ll smile weakly.