Hoppers

  • I’m cat-sitting a friend whose place is really remote. Around here, what that means is that paved roads are a dis­tant dream and gravel roads are deemed an affec­ta­tion. And I’ve almost got­ten used to the bouncy ride, and used to the part of it that goes through a corn­field, but I’m still not used to the part where the tan­gled road in front of me starts ping­ing and pop­ping. It’s that part of sum­mer now. The birds don’t sing as much, but the cicadas do con­stantly. And the ground belongs to the hoppers.

    Chirpers not wel­come; hop-toads permitted

    At my house, that means crick­ets may want to see if my house is a good place to hang out. It’s not. I’m a hos­tile entity, and it doesn’t go well for them. I would try to be more hos­pitable, but I have found that if you let down your guard, they’ll find them­selves a lovely inac­ces­si­ble nook and con­tent­edly chirp away the hours for days on end. Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but that just dri­ves me crazy. And the cricket will go on, chirp­ing a lit­tle less each day, until it expires or I go to a men­tal insti­tu­tion, whichever comes first. So these days, I deem it a gen­eral kind­ness if I has­ten the final end­ing by a week or so and grab whatever’s handy to pre­serve my san­ity at the cost of the cricket’s last weeks of bliss. Yes, I am a meanie.

    But on the road to Friend’s house (she val­ues her anonymity), it’s not the crick­ets that own the real estate, but other hop­ping friends. On the uppity gravel road, that would be late-summer frogs that come out in the cool of the twi­light and hop for all their worth when the head­lights hit them. I never knew frogs could get so moti­vated, and it’s too bad for them that their instincts are to go for alti­tude rather than just forward-momentum. Still, they always man­age to achieve their goal, and so far the head­lights are the only things that have hit them, I’m glad to report.

    Amaz­ing feats of grasshop­per bravado

    On the dirt road, though, the ter­ri­tory belongs to the grasshop­pers. Big ones, lit­tle ones, brown ones, green ones. I can’t be as sure that I haven’t hit any of them, but then, they’re tough lit­tle bug­gers — uh, bugs — and they just bounce off to hop another day.

    What has been more inter­est­ing are the times that a few of them land on the hood and decide they kind of like it there. The first time this hap­pened, two of them ended up rid­ing along and seemed to be tak­ing it all in. I expected them to take their leave the first time I slowed down, but even when I stopped com­pletely, they stood their ground in flat-footed defiance.

    I’m embar­rassed to say that this brought out the prankster in me, and after mak­ing sure that no one was around (a safe bet, since in that area, no one is ever around) I gave the horn a loud honk. That was all it took for the nearer of my two hitch-hikers to leap off the hood with what seemed to me to be exag­ger­ated self-pity. But his friend only hun­kered down and looked even more nonchalant.

    So I gunned that thing, and off we went, rais­ing dust behind us like a ram­pag­ing ele­phant. The grasshop­per showed a cagey grasp of physics and turned straight into the wind with his body down low, so that he decreased his wind resis­tance and looked like a lit­tle green hood ornament.

    I really was a lit­tle curi­ous to see how the affair would end, since I was on my way down south (to real civ­i­liza­tion and fast food des­ti­na­tions) and could’ve shown him Kansas City if he was game enough for the big city. And so I took him from the dirt road to the gravel and from gravel to pave­ment — 40 mph, 45, 50 …

    I can report that the grasshop­per seemed to be grow­ing con­cerned at about 55 mph. I think what got his atten­tion was that when he tried to read­just him­self, one of his big old back legs got the wind under it and started flap­ping like a flag. That’s got to be enough to stress out even the most manly of grasshop­pers. And so either because he finally lost his nerve, or because by that time we were rid­ing through brand new corn­fields that nei­ther he nor his kin­folk had ever seen before, he attempted a smooth depar­ture which, if it wasn’t exactly a per­fect 10, was suit­able under the cir­cum­stances. And for all I know, he is out there right now telling breath­less lady grasshop­pers of his thrilling ride.

    Another sat­is­fied customer

    Com­ing home from Friend’s just now, another guy tried it. He didn’t have nearly the eclat of the first grasshop­per, though he was a fine spec­i­men and looked like an insect any coun­try dri­ver would be proud to give a lift to. By good for­tune, I was only com­ing back to my house this time, so I didn’t try to pin his anten­nae back with raw speed. He hung on deter­minedly all the way back, though he hadn’t fig­ured out to turn into the wind, but when we were nearly home, he decided he had had enough and exe­cuted a much more styl­ish leap off the car than his pre­de­ces­sor. I reflect that he won’t eat as well as my last hood orna­ment, because there aren’t many corn­fields out here. But on the other hand, a strap­ping grasshop­per his size can prob­a­bly rule over all the puny town hop­pers around here, and he should be team cap­tain on my street in no time.

    I’m glad to con­tribute, in my small way, to fur­ther­ing the career of a cou­ple intre­pid grasshop­pers who fig­ured out a way to see the world.


    Related posts:

    1. Ice storms
    2. When the heav­ens delight us
    3. Joplin tor­nado: Who ya gonna call?
    4. Rainy Sat­ur­day in October
    5. The run­ning girl across the street

    August 23rd, 2011 | Grace | 2 Comments |

2 Responses and Counting...

  • greg­w­brooks 08.23.2011

    This? Maybe my favorite blog post, EVAH.

  • Grace

    Phew! I thought it was pos­si­ble you would call some­one here and ask them to take away the car keys until grasshop­per sea­son is over. :-)

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