# Cricket hell
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 27, 1999, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988 "1999-11-27T00:17:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/1 "1999-11-27T00:17:00Z")
I have always thought that crickets were sort of a benign creature (The Chinese believe in putting them in little gold boxes for good luck and one is suppose to be able to tell the temperature or something by listening to their chirps.) But what the hell happened in Texas and Oklahoma this year?? We were besieged with millions and millions of crickets. They appeared in August of this year then died by the gazillions, their little rotting corpses stunk up public buildings and roadways all over my town…Did a creature that eats crickets become extinct? Did any other states have this stinky problem? Just curious…
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### Author:  [@Oblio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oblio)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/2 "1999-11-27T00:42:00Z")
Jiminy !
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/3 "1999-11-27T01:09:00Z")
We seemed to have a large number of them here in Tennessee during the summer. The drought , maybe?
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Is an appreciation of beauty a function of the human soul?
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/4 "1999-11-28T02:30:00Z")
Aren’t they some kind of kin to locusts??
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### Author:  [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/5 "1999-11-28T02:33:00Z")
Damnit, I thought this was going to be some Englishamn complaining about the plight of the English cricket team in South Africa. Hopes are dashed. I’ll return to my isolation booth.
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/6 "1999-11-28T17:04:00Z")
Are you sure they were crickets? It sounds a lot like cicadas, which look something like crickets.
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John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/7 "1999-11-28T20:14:00Z")
I swear sheriff they were huge black crickets
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/8 "1999-11-28T20:43:00Z")
You haven’t persecuting the Isrealites, have you mike. 😉
Peace,
mangeorge.
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Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
Dance like nobody’s watching! …(Paraphrased)
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/9 "1999-11-28T21:00:00Z")
Make that Catholics. I can spell “Catholics”.
mangeorge
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### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [November 28, 1999, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/10 "1999-11-28T21:03:00Z")
I dunno, but if they’re related to the cicadas, then they’ll lay dormant underground for years until they hatch. Here in Ohio, we have 7 year cicadas, 3 year cicadas, etc.etc. And if you happen to be around during a year where they all emerge at once, take cover! Cicadas flying everywhere, getting in your hair, in your car – then, later, cicada corpses littering everything. Bleh! The only good thing is that they only live for something like 3 days, where they have an eating and mating frenzy. Sort of like a frat party without the vomit.
Anyway, be glad that we have modern pesticides so that y’all don’t starve to death when the crickets eat all your crops. Have fun!
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### Author:  [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)
#### Post date: [November 29, 1999, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-hell/4988/11 "1999-11-29T16:56:00Z")
“Gosh, what a Googly!”
-Rodd Hill, retuning to the pavillion for a pink gin.