Hatrack River Forum: Get ready, Midwesterners!

This is topic Get ready, Midwesterners! in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :

Brood XIII is on its way!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070520/ap_on_re_us/cicada_invasion

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

They're already up and out in a couple neighborhoods. Most of us are expecting them in the next 24-48 hours.

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

I'll never forget Dave's first experience of the seething chorus of cicadas.

"What's that? What the heck is that?"

"What?" (Me, the lifelong Midwesterner, completely deaf to it by now.)

"That thing, that noise! It goes hmmmHMMMMMMhmmmHHHHHHMMMMhmmm."

"Oh, that."

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I used to collect cicada husks. You could make them stick together in giant cicada huskballs. *reminiscing

Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :

With Elizabeth starting the thread I thought Brood XIII was the name of a band I might like.

Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :

Those things are so awful and so ugly. I had nightmares about them the last time they were here (I was 10 years old). They are so loud that it seemed like you had to shout when talking outside. We had to close our windows at times.

Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :

Boy am I glad I don't live in MI this week! [Smile]

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :

Them's some mighty good eatin's in them thar cicadas.

Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :

And there was a plague of locusts o'er the land.

Okay, you got me. I just wanted to type "o'er."

Posted by Luet13 (Member # 9274) on :

It's really hilarious to me the way that the cicadas are portrayed on the news.

Hide your kids! They will be terrified!!! You should be terrified! Billions of insects are going to emerge and you should be really, really scared because they have big ugly red eyes and they're so clumsy they may run into you! Not to mention the horrible noise!

It's like the trailer for some awful 50s B movie. "Attack of the 17-year Cicadas!" [ROFL]

Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :

I was a senior in 2004 when there were supposed to be a lot of them here (south central indiana). Didn't happen. There were a few, we noticed them on prom night, just a gentle noise. Not at all like the pictures from 17 years earlier when I was learning to walk and could grab five shells at any spot.

Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :

My family moved from Skokie to Highland Park in fall of 1972. The next spring, the cicadas came. I thought at first that it was a Highland Park thing, because I was 10 years old -- I'd never seen them before. I was lucky enough to be living in Israel during the invasion in 2000, and I wish I could miss this one. It isn't the invasion itself, or the noise (I think), but the millions of crunchy husks all over the place afterwards. <shudder>

At least it isn't spiders.

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

I'll totally second Lisa.... steppin on the dead buggies and their shells are the worst part.

Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :

Am I the only one who wishes to be there during the invasion, instead of the other way around?

Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :

I am just glad I live in New England, where the insects may give you encephalitis and Lyme Disease, causing a slow and excruciating death or lifetime of debilitation, but darn it, they aren't as scary as all y'all's other bugs.

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The White Whale:
Am I the only one who wishes to be there during the invasion, instead of the other way around?

Me, too. I have fond memories of making long cicada-shell chains and cicada-balls. [Smile]

Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :

Ew, ew, and ick.

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

Yeah, well, science club member. [Smile]

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Edited to add: I also did a perfect frog brain dissection in middle school. My talents have no bounds.

Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :

I love these little guys.
[The Wave]

Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :

I don't know if the Detroit area deals with the little guys or not. When I was out walking the other night there did seem to be a lot of bugs out, ones that we don't usually see on a regular basis, but they didn't really looked like what my mental picture of a cicada is. I'm not expecting them to be around here.

In my almost 23 years of life, I can't ever remember it happening.