love gives strange gifts

After a week of travel, I came home last night to a surprising sound. As I opened the door, I heard a loud (and I mean loud) chirping sound bouncing off the hollow trailer walls. Moving across the dark room, going to close my roommate’s bedroom door so that I could turn the light on, I found her awake.

“What is that sound?”

“Oh, that’s our cricket friend. We’ll learn to get along.”

"Oh. Ok."

Knowing the usual quirks of our trailer, I figured that a cricket had gotten into some unreachable corner of the kitchen, and that they hadn’t been able to retrieve it yet. I, on the other hand, cannot stand loud noises when I go to bed, so I planned on finding the critter and exterminating it. Yes, I would conquer. With Kim’s door closed, I walked back to the kitchen and turned on the light. Then I saw it.

Sitting on the counter was a blue bug house crawling with a bunch of grasshoppers and, yes, one cricket, singing his merry song at an obnoxious volume. Too confused and frustrated to be polite, I went back and knocked on Kim’s door.

“I thought you were kidding about learning to get along. Why the hell is there a cricket in our kitchen?”

“They (that means the kids) brought us like 19 grasshoppers and a cricket. We can get rid of him tomorrow.”

“Oh no. He’s going now.”

I said goodnight, finished unpacking my things from the car, and turned my attention to the chirping intruder. Thankfully, the fellow actually jumped out of the box and onto my arm in an attempt to escape (this was much easier than trying to fish him out of a bunch of grasshoppers). I threw him outside with great satisfaction and locked the door for the night.

Back in the kitchen, I spotted a piece of paper on the floor with a child’s handwriting on it. Now, our fridge and floor are constantly cluttered with kid-drawn pictures, but this was new. I picked it up and read it:

to Kim and Leah at Kate
we have cot a lot of grass hoppers
trie 19 grass hoppers and 1 crickit and thay are all for you gus
take good care of thim
and this is from Sarah Lizzy and Livi (Levi)
have fun with thim and love thim
never get reed of thim

Turning it over, I saw it was addressed, “From Sarah Lizzy and Livi to you funney and goffy friends”

Now, I don’t regret tossing that cricket out the door. There’s no way I would have slept with it inside. But reading that scribbled note, the chirping suddenly had a new meaning for me. It was a sound of love, the gift of our relationship with a bunch of kids who spent their afternoon catching bugs for us. I wished I'd been there on they day there were delivered.

And now, I just sit back and wait for the day Levi decides to stick one of those hoppers in one of our beds….