amusedIn an escalation of the ongoing invasion of the Middle East (Coast) by cicadas, I had a close encounter yesterday.
I'd stopped at the store for a moment, and after I returned to my car and left the parking lot, I heard a loud buzzing just over my shoulder.
No it was closer thn that.
It was ON my shoulder!
Now despite the fact that I've played with cicadas several times this year, and watched in fascination as they crawled out of the ground, up a nearby surface and then 'hatched' into their final form (ok not all at once, but it's easy to find them in the various stages of this process), I had to fight back a moment of panic.
They're big, ugly, noisy and completely harmless. Still it was trapped with me in my car.
So I drove for a ways, found somewhere safe to stop, and got out and talked the hitchhiker into finding another ride.
Soon they'll start following me into my home, and terrorizing the cats!
Hee hee. I used to have a pet rat who would sit on my shoulder, and every once in a while, she'd stick her snout into my ear and sniff. Even though I adored this little rodent, I would still feel this momentary, primordial reaction of, "AAAAH! Alien creature invading personal space!"