I had a lovely time helping my dad babysit my nieces this morning. As I was driving home, I discovered to my horror that I had picked up a hitchhiker. He wasn’t mean. He didn’t bite, but I was not happy to learn of his presence while driving down the road. I nearly wrecked as I swerved completely unnecessarily from this creepy sensation of cicada crawling up my arm. I brushed him off my arm onto the floorboard of the car but continued to imagine that I felt him crawling up my legs.

(Thank you, cicadamania.com for the image!)

I made it safely home to my great relief. I called my teen boys out to remove our guest without harming him. My oldest boy threw a dustpan at him and refused to do any more. My youngest attempted to push him onto the dustpan with a paper towel. He kept flying inches away so he gave up.

It quickly became apparent that I would have to do this myself. Wasn’t it enough that I didn’t take us both out in a fiery wreck? Obviously not. He had to go, no one else would do it. I grabbed the paper towels and cautiously approached the driver’s side floor board. As I neared him, he flew up and disappeared.

Disappeared! You know what’s creepier than a cicada? A missing cicada! Yeah, I was kind of freaking. My heart was racing as I turned the paper towel and saw him clinging to it for dear life. I shook the paper towel, and he flew off into the grass. I think we were both happier.