A Battle of Wits

I met my nemesis the other day while relaxing in my garage and watching a movie. The sound of chirping came from the left side of my chair, startling me at first and making me rewind the movie to make sure it wasn’t something I heard in the movie.

After reviewing the film a second time through, the sound did not appear where I had heard before.

Cricket…was back.

This time, I was going to be well-prepared. Instead of frantically searching for this cricket by location of sound… I allowed Cricket to move around and chirp where he so desired, giving him a false sense of security. However, once the movie was over I made sure his chirping days were no more.

After honing in more accurately on the location of his chirping, I removed the Xbox box carrying case that was lying on the floor to discover Cricket resting completely unaware. Once he saw me with the large stick in my hand, he ran, or rather hopped, away from me.

The game of cat and mouse was now afoot. I chased him around the garage, jabbing here in there. Eventually his luck ran out when he made the mistake of hiding underneath the shadow of a really heavy box I was holding in my hand.

WHAM!

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…

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On that day, some would say the cricket won in the end… Some would say that I won in the end… But as I sit here typing this battle of wits, I am relieved to inform you that I was not squished and tossed in the trash. Cricket had finally met his match.

It was a relatively small cricket…and I was kind. I didn’t use full force. It was enough pressure to stop him from moving, but not enough to remove his guts from his outer shell. It was an admirable death of an insect… a respected death that was neither gruesome nor grisly. Because I am kind.

Hopefully somewhere up there is a cricket heaven. Some place where Cricket can go to and look down upon me and realize that he had met the greatest cricket stomper that ever lived.

What a glorious hero of this time.