The Cricket's Tale

As Founder and President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Crickets (PETC), I hear of all kinds of cricket abuse. Crickets suffer dismemberment from small children. Children sometimes simply squash them for their sadistic pleasure, and it’s not uncommon to hear of children sealing them in old mayonnaise jars and let them suffocate.

Some of the tales told to me by crickets will chill you to the bone. Once a mature cricket told me how, as a young chirper, he and several of his friends were captured and imprisoned in a wire cage. They ended up in a fishing boat, where fishermen were using them as fish bait. Fish bait, can you believe it?

He watched as his friends were taken from the cage and impaled with barbed fish hooks and tossed overboard, presumably to attract fish. For him, the worst part was the looks on his friends’ faces as they were skewered. He, though, was a lucky cricket.

One of the fishermen failed to secure the door of his wire cage, and he slipped out, unnoticed, and swam to safety. Well, relative safety, as there are almost as many dangers facing a cricket as there are crickets.

Recently, a field worker for PETC brought in a black cricket that had become a pale gray due to a harrowing near-death experience. That which follows is a partial transcript of our recorded conversation.

“How may I help you, my good cricket?”

“For starters, you can let your people know, that I'm not out to harm them.”

“Well, that is part of our mission. Have you had a people problem?”

“No, not unless, you count a people-person trying to kill me ‘a problem.’”

“Kill you? Surely, not!”

“Oh yeah! I was on my way over the hill to see Gladys last Saturday evening.”

“Gladys?”

“Yeah, Gladys. She’s a slim-legged broad, er…excuse me, a slim-legged dolly-cricket, who lives about five cricket miles from me. Rather than walk around a people-house, I always prefer to work my way through it. When I got to the den, I noticed two people-persons sitting in comfortable chairs.”

“So you were trespassing?”

“Perhaps, but I’d call it taking a short cut. Anyway, I got about halfway across the carpeted floor when the woman-person jumped up and ran toward me.”

“Did you assume a threatening stance, or rear-up on your hind legs or show any sign of aggression?”

“Of course not! I simply stopped and sat very still. But, she started yelling to the man-person and took off a shoe and raised it high over me like she was going to drop it on me.”

“What did you do?”

“I prayed a quick prayer as she bent down closer to me. Then, with her shoe hand she tried to pin me to the carpet. My prayer must have been answered as I was temporarily given a state of super agility. Well, that or my adrenalin kicked in, and I kicked myself quickly away as the shoe landed where I had been. She may have been praying to her people-god, ‘cause she was pretty quick, too. She took a couple or more big shoe-slams at me before I hid out under a big chair.”

“So, you were saved by a chair?”

“In a way, yes. You see, she got the man-person to help pick up one side of the chair as she tried again to club, no, shoe me to death. But, I kept running from side to side, using the chair for cover. All of a sudden the man-person stood up, then fell back down on the chair and rolled into the floor. He was out cold for a minute or two in cricket time. I don’t know what happened to him, but the woman-person started tending to him and forgot about me. I made a dash for the grillwork around the fireplace and on to safety. I can honestly say, Gladys never looked so good as she did last Saturday night.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through such an ordeal, and I’m not condoning the violence on the part of my people, but you must realize that until we here at PETC can educate people to treat crickets in a humane and ethical manner, crickets should avoid all contact with people.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I bet I could have taken her, if it had been just her and me.”

Obviously, my work as President of PETC is incomplete. Both humans and crickets have a long way to go before harmonious co-existence is achieved. But, it is my hope that this tale will in some small measure advance the cause of PETC. And, please remember…there were crickets before there were people.

~ By Wayne “Cricket” Carter, President PETC