Last Night

3:45 am - I awake to find BJ walking around our bedroom in the dark waving a flashlight around the floor. He makes me aware of the chirping cricket (we feed them to our leapord geckos) that's happily chirping away somewhere on the carpet floor. The chirping stops. He gives up. We fall back asleep.

4:00 am - Chirp. Chirp Chirp. Chirp CHIRP Chirp. This time I get up. BJ hands me the flashlight and I start sifting through the pile of laundry the cricket has stowed himself in. The chirping stops. I go back to bed but this time lay there awake.

4:10 am - CHIRP. (long pause) CHIRP. (long pause) CHIRP. I jump out of bed, grab the flashlight and AHAH! locate the cricket on the bathroom floor.

4:11 am - Chirpy is flushed.

4:20 am - Back in bed, I lay awake trying to justify the flushing of the cricket. I tell myself it is stupid to feel bad about killing a bug that our lizards would have otherwise eaten alive. I tell myself drowning is a much better death.