Cicada Madam

This morning, like most mornings, I walked out my door to the sound of cicadas screaming. But this morning, unlike most days, when I got in my car and shut the door, the sound didn’t dampen.

So I opened my car door, stuck my head out, ducked back into the car, and shut the door. The sound of cicadas was louder in my car than outside my car. Then something caught my eye in my rear view mirror. There, behind where the rear seats were folded down, on the felted lining of my trunk, was a very gray, very large, very agitated smudge. I say smudge because there’s no other way to describe what I saw other than it looked as if an enormous moth had been badly drawn from memory in charcoal and then smudged.

I screamed. The cicada screamed. We all screamed bloody murder.

I opened the hatchback. It didn’t leave.

I begged. It didn’t leave.

I cajoled. It didn’t leave.

I texted my physical therapist. “I’m going to be late. There’s a cicada IN my car.”

* * *

I left the hatchback open and ran into the house to find something I could use to get the cicada out of my car. Hopefully by the time I got back, the cicada would see itself out, but if it didn’t, I’d be prepared.

Gloves? But then I’d have to pick it up. Ew.

The vacuum cleaner? Would it even fit in the little telescoping extender thingie? (Having since consulted Google, I have learned this is called an extension wand, but I called it the extender thingie when I was talking out loud to myself and here on Attention Generous, we believe in verisimilitude.) If it gets stuck in the extender thingie, what then? No. Better to try something else.

Water bottle? Oh damn, I almost forgot my water bottle.

Chapstick? Jesus Christ, get it together Hype! First the water bottle and now this—why isn’t your chapstick in your fanny pack?

Broom and dustpan set? Yes! We can trap the cicada in the dustpan and then leave the dustpan out while we go to physical therapy. Then, with any luck, while we are safely away, counting repetitions and cursing whoever invented resistance bands, the cicada will join its cicadathren in the trees, where it belongs. (I didn’t know if cicadas have sexes—they’re so prehistoric but also somehow alien looking, so for all I knew, they reproduced like bacteria. Or however tribbles reproduce. I was keeping an open mind, okay?)

* * *

Armed with my tools, I went back outside to deal with the cicada, but when I got to the trunk . . . there were two.

And they were not hand in hand, chest to chest, and face to face like that Rihanna song, but rather end to end, which—as I learned from a quick Google keeping one eye on the scene in my trunk and one eye on my phone screen—is apparently how cicadas actually reproduce.

And they were LOUD. I was honestly embarrassed for them because with the way they were carrying on, she was so obviously faking it.

“Please DO stop the music.” Nothing.

“Girl, he’s not worth it.” Somehow, the screams got louder.

Several minutes of coaxing, shooing, bargaining, sobbing, and cursing later, both cicadas were trapped in the dustpan and screaming their everything off so loudly that I winced. I got the vacuum with the pointy thingie (which Google informs me is called a crevice tool and I do believe that would make an excellent name for a 90s alt group), detailed the heck out of the felt liner, and then drove to PT, all the while, laughing hysterically by myself until there were tears streaming down my face, as any 100% totally completely absolutely okay person would.

* * *

“So sorry I’m late, there were cicadas fucking in my car,” which is what any 100% totally completely absolutely normal person’s opening line would be in this situation.

My physical therapist stopped short. “You mean there were cicadas in the fucking car?”

I was taken aback. Horrified, really.

“I hope it’s not The Fucking Car now! I don’t think I have sufficient executive functioning for that kind of responsibility. I can barely file my taxes on time and now I’m running an insect brothel? Do you know how hard it is to run a brothel? I mean, even the legal ones are really complicated, even if the girls are independent contractors. No thanks.”

“What?” My physical therapist was understandably lost. The way my brain works, I get myself lost sometimes.

“You called it the fuc—you know what, never mind.”

Another patient piped up. “I get it. It’s an emphasis thing.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

“Yeah, like ‘there were fucking cicadas in the car—’”

“Which there literally were. They were literally fucking.”

“Oh damn.”

“Yeah.”

My physical therapist stood there blinking at absolutely nothing for a few seconds. Then, sluggishly, he said, “There is a fee for arriving 15 minutes after your appointment time—“

“Fucking cicadas,” I muttered.

“But I’ll waive it this time.”

* * *

In case anyone needs an alternative to “there was an accident” or “I caught a flat” or “there was construction,” I am giving this to you for free.