you can jump but you can't survive

there are some really charming quirks about our new house (hello, extra room for shoes and hand bags), and there are some less-than-charming quirks as well (hello, no outlets in the bathroom). the worst of these is our forced cohabitation with camel crickets.



this particularly pernicious pest tricks you into thinking it's a spider and then, as soon as you make a move to squash it, jumps away like a cricket. which probably explains why they are also referred to as spider crickets. we prefer to call them sprickets. cute, right?

unfortunately, sprickets themselves are not cute at all. they are kind of freaky. and they are super-duper hard to kill because their antennae give them the super-power of speedy escape.

this isn't such a problem when sprickets just stay in the basement where they belong. but lately our spricket stowaways have been getting bold. the other day we found one in the living room. then one in the dining room. then one in the kitchen. and then i found one on my bed. and that was the last, gross straw.

so, let it be known. i have declared war on sprickets.

conventional anti-spricket weaponry includes sticky traps, the downside being the statistical unlikelihood that these otherwise uncooperative bugs will actually land on the sticky trap before they make it up to my room.

so i am employing uncoventional tactics as well, guerilla warfare if you will. namely, i have discovered a flaw in the evolutionary development of sprickets and i am shamelessly exploiting it. do you want to know my secret? for the betterment of humankind, here you go.

the antennae that allow sprickets to so quickly jump away from murderous stomps can also work against them. just back a spricket into a corner antennae-first and he can't feel you coming. and, BAM! bye-bye, spricket.

and hello pure satisfaction.

i am considering keeping a rambo-style body-count tally. for now, all sprickets should consider themselves on notice. i am coming to get you.