Someone ordered a parcel of crickets and it went about as well as you’d expect
An unfortunate part of owning a lizard is that it needs to be provided with live prey to stimulate its urge to eat, so one responsible lizard owner, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham, ordered his pet some crickets. It must have been his first order because he didn’t quite know how the parcel worked. We’ll let him tell the story.
It seemed straightforward enough.
So, a shipment of crickets for the lizard arrived via FedEx today. It was my first time ordering bulk crickets off the internet, and I naively assumed that they would be in like, a bag or some other contraption to facilitate easy transfer to another container. They were not.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
It wasn’t.
They were in a cardboard box. And I cut the tape and opened the box and SURPRISE! Crickets everywhere. It was the middle of the workday and I didn't have time to deal with cricket logistics, so I put the tape back on the box.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
He tried some damage limitation.
And then I put the box in the upstairs bathroom, the only semi-contained place in the house where I knew the kids and the cats and the dogs wouldn't be able to get at the box and tear it open and unleash 250 hungry crickets into our warm, semi-humid environment.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
Perhaps not enough damage limitation.
About 20 minutes later I'm back at work on my computer, and I hear my wife in the kitchen: "where are these goddamn crickets coming from." I freely admit I had not kept her fully up-to-date on my cricket purchasing plans.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
He may have had too much faith in his quick fix.
And at first I was like "okay, maybe one or two got out when I initially opened the box. No biggie." I kept working.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
With the benefit of hindsight, this was a mistake.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
Eventually, he felt compelled to investigate.
I'm trying to wrap up a story but I keep hearing cricket-related exclamations coming from the kitchen. Eventually I get up to investigate. I say, "So uh the crickets got here toda–"
"I REALIZE THAT," she says. "WHY ARE THEY ALL OVER THE KITCHEN"— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
The failure of his hasty problem-solving measures became horribly apparent.
I say "That's a good question. Let me check something." I walk over to the bathroom. I open the door. There are crickets. Everywhere.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
Crickets on the floor. Crickets on the walls. Crickets in the sink. Crickets in the toilet.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
This is so much worse than the original problem.
For some reason my first instinct is to flush the toilet, as if that will do anything to solve the problem of crickets in all the other places that were not the toilet. I shut the door. "Uh, don't come in here!" I try to sound cheerful.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018
Cue solution attempt number two.
Apparently I had not sealed the box shut as well as I should have. I ended up rushing out to the shed, in the 18" of snow and below zero temperatures, to pick up a spare aquarium we had. I spent about 45 minutes collecting crickets from the bathroom.
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) December 29, 2018