Seven years after moving from San Diego I’ve acclimated myself to nearly all things Chicago, from City Hall “patronage” to loveable losers like our Cubs. I’ve learned that we drag our hot dogs “through the garden” and we detest the Packers with the same intensity we reserve for people who move here from La-La Land. (I quickly learned it was best to claim I was born in Wisconsin, not California).
I’ve braved icy winters and sweated through blast-furnace summers. I now understand the Aldermanic form of government, which is loosely based on medieval fiefdoms-- except that serfs here are called constituents, not peasants. I’ve learned that the concept of freeways is for socialistic states, since any serf who can afford a car should also be expected to pay a toll.
I’ve learned to love Da Bears, bratwurst and Da Blues Brothers. In short, I’ve rejected my California birthright to study the ways of the Midwesterner. But like Harry Potter, I’ve yet to pass a final test: Magicicada Septendecim.
“You’ve never seen or heard anything like them,” my wife promises. Even now, they’re rising up from their subterranean lairs in a Hemipteran frenzy, their little red eyes mad with lust. They are the Seventeen Year Cicada, one of Earth’s longest living insects, and most sexually deprived.
Let’s face it, if you’re a bug with only one chance to score after seventeen years of sucking on tree roots, you’d make some noise too. Once the three magic temperatures coincide (soil: 63 degrees, air: 68 degrees, Cicada temperature: burning with desire) they will burst from the ground in a strategy known as “predator satiation” to maximize their chance of reproducing successfully without being eaten or stomped on.
Periodical cicadas are a testament to either evolution or creation depending on your personal beliefs. 17 year cicadas and their cousins the 13 year cicadas are geographically distributed in broods which emerge in a mathematically choreographed pattern to avoid interaction between the two species. Since 13 and 17 are both prime numbers the two species surface concurrently just once every 221 years, minimizing the likelihood of bad blood and bar fights. These periodic cycles also help cicada broods survive temperature anomalies like the occasional cool summer. (I haven’t experienced a single cool summer in Chicago yet, but I haven’t lived here for seventeen years, either).
Sometime in the next few weeks we’ll struggle to sleep through a cacophony of cicadan revelry-- but I won’t begrudge them their fun. Instead, I’ll remember the guy at the sex study who leapt to his feet and frantically waved his hand when the researcher asked if anyone there had sex less frequently than twice a year. When asked why he was so excited the poor guy shouted, “Because tonight’s THE NIGHT!”
1 comment:
Absolutely hilarious. 17 years in your area, not everywhere by the way. Some come out every year in a tolerable amount but when that 13 or 17 year cycle hits it's quite noisy. I remember one cold ass day on truman lake, MO in June with Petey, we were carppie fishing. The cicada's were everywhere, they were on everything. Way out in teh middle of the lake they were crawling under our coveralls and buzzing on our backs. You wouldn't feel them until they buzzed then you blew your mind trying to figure out what it was.
I still see no letters for my visual verification, and this is a brand new puter running vista so something on your end is not working properly.
Chelsea Clinton saw a service man on campus and asked him what he feared the most.
His reply was simple: "I fear Osama, Obama and Yomama.
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