Cicadas (Part 1)

Alfred Hitchcock definitely missed the boat by not making a movie called The Cicadas.  Here's what the movie poster might have looked like.

 Click here to see more clever artwork.

Remember this scene from The Birds?

Now use your imagination.  Replace the jungle gym with a gas pump.  And replace the birds with a bunch of these red-eyed critters staring at you.

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That's exactly what I experienced yesterday at the Mapco gas station on Nolensville Pike.  The pump was like a cicada airport.  I'm pretty sure there was some off-site traffic controlling cicada (with a headset of course) clearing them all for landing and take off on MY gas pump.  Hundreds About nine or ten of these creepy creatures were crawling all over the pump threatening to fly into my car, my hair, my mouth!  Eeewww.  Just eeewww! 

And, they are SO loud when they all get together!  You can even hear them in the trees when you're on the freeway going 70 mph with the windows rolled up and a book on tape loudly playing.  The first time I ever heard them was back in the 1900s during the night in a remote village in Costa Rica.  I was alone in a small cabin.  (Oh, I lied, I shared the cabin with a gigantic shower-dwelling spider!)  But, I digress.  Here's what they sound like.

 
I've saved the best for last so I hope you're still here.  This clever song pretty much sums up my feelings about cicadas.

Oh, here's one more brief video if you're interested in seeing their life cycle via cool videography accompanied by Enya.