# I pit cicadas
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 8, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423 "2007-09-08T00:18:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/1 "2007-09-08T00:18:44Z")
Aaaaahhhhhhhh!!! I can’t take it any more. Shut the fuck up.
They’re almost as annoying as I am. But at least when I shead my carapace I deposit it in the proper recepticle. And I do shut up at some point. Shut up!!!
(Of course soon you will all be dead. Hehehe)
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### Author:  [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/2 "2007-09-08T00:55:21Z")
I hear you.
And I hear him–outside my bedroom window for the past 20+ nights.
Chirp, chirp, chirp. Isn’t there a formula for determining the temperature based on the number of chirps per minute? Know what? I don’t fucking care. I just want the goddamn chirpy SOB to shut up. Or for the weather to cool down enough so I can slam down the window and Mr. Chirpy McSixlegs can do whatever he does (die, reproduce, burrow into the soil, ???) for the next 9 months.
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/3 "2007-09-08T00:59:42Z")
Oh cmon, how can you not love [this face?](http://www.earthlife.net/insects/images/hemipter/cicada3.JPG)
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/4 "2007-09-08T01:04:19Z")
But how [big](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8942866&postcount=41) are they?
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/5 "2007-09-08T01:58:23Z")
The may be one of the only good reasons to have tinnitus. I often can’t tell the difference.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/6 "2007-09-08T02:36:45Z")
IF they made cute chirping sounds, that would be one thing.
But they scream. They sound like bad electronica.
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/7 "2007-09-08T02:47:24Z")
[QUOTE=TokyoPlayer]
The may be one of the only good reasons to have tinnitus. I often can’t tell the difference.
[/QUOTE]
Same here! Well, I can tell the difference, but it’s the sort of noise my brain isn’t overly bothered by.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/8 "2007-09-08T03:57:40Z")
I once had a chuck-wills-widow (southern version of the whip-poor-will) singing out in the field near my old home-they sing LOUD and they sing all night LONG sometimes. I got so annoyed one night that I went out there to scare it away-I almost tripped over it and it flew up and almost clawed my eyes out, then flew off. Never heard it again.
Fast forward a few years and I (very long story) had completely changed my attitude towards many things, wildlife in particular (lame description of something complicated, but I digress). One night it (or another one) started up again and I just let it serenade me to sleep. The problem isn’t the bugs, it’s you. 🆒
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### Author:  [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/9 "2007-09-08T04:12:35Z")
Stick cicadas in your ears if the noise bothers you.
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/10 "2007-09-08T04:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=monstro]
They sound like bad electronica.
[/QUOTE]
I just noticed that the crickets outside my window (no cicadas here) are slightly out of time with each other and keep going in and out of synch. Sounds like a Steve Reich composition.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/11 "2007-09-08T05:08:02Z")
Huh. I’ve always loved the sound cicadas make.
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### Author:  [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/12 "2007-09-08T05:46:43Z")
I’m a big fan of cicadas. What I find especially interesting is the \*very \* different sounds that the different species make. [This page](http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fauna/michigan_cicadas/Michigan/Index.html) contains sound files for a number of species.
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### Author:  [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/13 "2007-09-08T06:11:37Z")
Thanks for the link. I had no idea they made such a wide range of sounds. (The ones around here aren’t particularly loud or annoying).
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### Author:  [@orinoko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orinoko)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/14 "2007-09-08T13:28:15Z")
Cicadas are awesome. Of course, my room is nearly insect-proof. Sound and visitation both.
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### Author:  [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/15 "2007-09-08T13:53:37Z")
I can’t believe there’s love here for cicadas.
Ok, as background noise, they sound like summer. I’d probably be confused without them. But when they take up residence next to your window ALL NIGHT LONG…
And when you’ve been though a 17 year cicada summer and can’t go out to the backyard without this sicking crunching sound…well you lose a little love.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/16 "2007-09-08T15:23:19Z")
The loudest cicadas I’ve experienced were in Big Bend National Park. I took a bike ride on one of the dirt roads, and the buzz was constant. After a couple of hours, my ears were ringing.
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### Author:  [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/17 "2007-09-08T16:09:02Z")
In Dayton, OH about 19 years ago - it was like a giant UFO hovering right over you and the crunching everywhere you walked. Yuck.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/18 "2007-09-08T17:03:29Z")
[QUOTE=Proudest Monkey]
I hear you.
And I hear him–outside my bedroom window for the past 20+ nights.
Chirp, chirp, chirp. Isn’t there a formula for determining the temperature based on the number of chirps per minute? Know what? I don’t fucking care. I just want the goddamn chirpy SOB to shut up. Or for the weather to cool down enough so I can slam down the window and Mr. Chirpy McSixlegs can do whatever he does (die, reproduce, burrow into the soil, ???) for the next 9 months.
[/QUOTE]
Chirpy McSixlegs 😃 that’s funny
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### Author:  [@Kneepants\_Erasmus\_the\_Humanist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kneepants_Erasmus_the_Humanist)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/19 "2007-09-08T19:03:40Z")
☹
I want cicadas. And crickets.
I live on a busy street; the only sounds I get are those of cars and drunken frat boys vomiting. That’s the recipe for romance, I tell ya.
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### Author:  [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cicadas/418423/20 "2007-09-08T19:18:57Z")
When I was a kid we had them everywhere at our house. I spent an entire summer with my daisy bb gun doing nothing every day but killing them. I shot over 100 in one day…bb’s are cheap. to this day that neighborhood is pretty well cicada free…that was about 1974 I think…
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