I don't like bugs. No, strike that. I hate bugs. Detest, loathe, abhor, despise and revile them. I also happen to be scared witless of them. Normally, this fear does not affect me to any great degree since I don't have a lot of dealings with bugs. Occasionally I will freak out over a cricket in my apartment, or a spider that got into my classroom at work, but generally my fear and hatred of bugs lies quiet with only the rare flare up which is soon put out.

Except for every 17 years.

Every 17 years it seems I am destined to live in a constant state of fear and hysteria every time I step outside. Because every 17 years...the cicadas come calling.
Click on the link. No, really. Click on it. See that disgusting, beady red eyed monster? Now imagine tens of thousands of them. Right. Outside. Your. Door.

On your door. On your porch. Ready to drop from trees and onto your head (or down your shirt, yes, that happened to me once). On your car. Divebombing your windshield. On the bushes near your door. Covering the sidewalks, the grass, the street. They are....everywhere. And I live in terror.

Leaving my apartment in the morning has become a test of wills. I have to gather all my nerve to open the door, close it quickly behind me and leap over the assembled masses on my porch to the small clear area I scouted in the two seconds it took me to shut the door. Then I make the mad dash to my car, praying constantly, trying to watch the skies overhead for airborne ones, while simultaneously watching the sidewalk for grounded ones. The couple seconds it takes to unlock the car door and open it seem interminable. I throw myself into the car and slam the door shut behind me, breathing like I just finished a marathon.

Coming home is far worse. I spend at least five minutes in the haven of my car, scraping together the last shreds of my courage. I have seriously considered just living the next six weeks in my car. But eventually I remember that my car doesn't have a bathroom, and am forced to exit the car. I make the same mad dash I make in the morning, in reverse. Then I get to my door. Where I freeze in terror, almost hyperventilating in fear. All over the door frame are cicadas. Invariably there is always one right next to the doorknob. The bush right next to the door also has several dozen clinging to it. I stand there, crying with fear and frustration, scared to open the door, lest it disturb the ones on the door and they fly at me, and scared to stay standing there lest an airborne one decide to come land on me.

It's a nightmare. Once I finally manage to get into my apartment, that's it. I don't go out again. If I forgot to run an errand or do something before I came home, then that's just too bad. I'm not going out there again.

People (with the exception of Jen, who rocks), don't seem to understand this debilitating fear. Cicadas don't sting, they don't bite. They can't hurt you. People roll their eyes, or tell me to just get over it, or, "they'll be gone in 6 weeks!" As if that helps me now. To those people I would like to say: Shut Up.

I don't fear heights. I'm not afraid of getting on an airplane. Small spaces don't bother me, neither do wide open ones. I don't obsess over germs. I don't freak out over bridges. I drive on the highways in the rain and snow, I live alone and I once willingly spent a weekend in a very dangerous middle eastern city and went to sleep with the sound of guns and bombs right outside. I really don't think I'm a cowardly person, so please allow me my one irrational fear, keep your sighs of impatience and condescension to yourself and just deal with me.

After all, it's only for another six weeks.