They like the moist, they like the dark. They like basements and showers and warm piles of underwear. And now they have followed Rowan to HIS new house, much to his distress – they hang out in his bathroom, making jeering comments when he pees. Heather tries to scare them off before HER bathroom visits, but the BIG one (there’s always a BIG one) hid from her right behind the roll of toilet paper, sniggering.
Anywho, so the above is the best evidence of their existence.
I’ve also got THIS picture – the Kentucky Cave Cricket is what U-Haul declares the beast to be, and I used to think that this, admittably rather blurry, photograph signified proof of wide acceptance of their existance, but… but as with all photographs of cryptids, the picture is rather blurry, and I can’t find corroborating information on U-Haul’s website. All the other “Venture to America” graphics are represented, but not this one… I smell… conspiracy… especially because of the OTHER images that U-Haul IS willing to place on their trucks and on their website. Below, you’ll find images of U-Hauls advertising the existance of the alien landing at Roswell, New Mexico, and Champ from Lake Champlain in Vermont. Sigh. My proof slips through my fingers. I am Mulderized… I am rob’s sinking feeling of government conspiracy.
So, this is weird and slightly out of order, but neccessary to provide some sort of continuity – or continuous discontinuity, or something – the timeline of the photographs and their captions don’t ALWAYS mesh with the timeline of the dated text, but I figure that’s ok – right?
Anywho, the pictures of the beastial lobster crickets from page 481 (yes…. the futurrrre!!) [deal with it, some stuff like this has gone to Hell while transferring the Journal to wordpress!!!] have created interesting response – and I’m feeling better about the fact that OTHER PEOPLE HAVE SEEN THEM TOO!!
Brennan says in our forums:
“The “lobster crickets” that recently showed in the journal took up residence in my basement sometime in highschool. Each family member had a very surprised encounter with them, and they were termed Fubububas, a verbalization of the abbreviation “F.B.B.B.”*
which was the first time I could remember my parents making a bad word part of our personal family dictionary, even by reference.
They aren’t real crickets, so I feel no obligation to “let them go” per Cricket Hunt. They shall be hunted with large heavy books where ever I find them.
*(Fucking Big Bouncing Bugs)”
Then, in an IM conversation with my old roommate from college, Chris (who now resides in Georgia) – more is revealed:
Chris: you call them lobster crickets. in the south, they call them camel crickets. i loathe them almost as much as spiders…supposedly they bite too.
rob: GAH! I really really hope that that’s not true.
Chris: i haven’t been bitten…but why do they always hang out in the bathroom. right by the toilet
rob: they’re waiting for dangly bits.
Chris: that’s what makes me so nervous.
rob: … sigh – the idea of the … the bite… and then perhaps the burrowing… and then… the testicular nesting. – s h u d d e r
rob: what a great word though – testicular nesting.
Chris: i watched a show the other day about Bot flies…talk about creepy nesty, egg laying…bah. – testicular nesting…just the thought makes me itch. – but then for some reason i can’t get the image of bird nest’s made from testicals out of my mind.
rob: ah – that would be the artschool… it itches too.
How I wish I could console myself with the idea that they were mere imagined phantasms, but alas, since we’ve been talking about them in the Journal, they’ve even arrived here at the Lloydholme. We found one in the garage, probably waiting to do some testicular nesting. I bet the test for that’s awful, but not nearly so bad as the cure.