Year of the Locust

First off, apparently only people from TX use the word 'grasshopper'. I was so confused when people started talking about this locust plague because I couldn't find any locusts...you know those ugly green things that attach themselves to trees and are really loud and then leave those crunchy brown shells behind that you play with in the yard as a kid. All I saw were grasshoppers everywhere and it took me a surprisingly long time to figure out that those were the locusts they were talking about...I think the heat is getting to my brain! Anyways, everywhere else in the world what I know of as grasshoppers are called locusts and come to think of it, I don't actually know what name they have for our TX locusts. For me it's more the year of the grasshopper, but that's neither here nor there.

There are 'locusts' everywhere. Like when I go outside I have them hitting me in the face. The other day there were 4 in the car which makes it a little difficult to drive. When I got to my friends houses they help me pick them off the back of my shirt. That's fine, they're huge and they kind of hurt when they hit you in the face, but if they stay outside then that's fine with me...except for that they don't stay outside. I don't really know how but it has become the year of the grasshopper in my apartment.

We also have a surprisingly large number of frogs...I mean, it's the desert, frogs? When it was raining there were thousands. You actually couldn't take a step without stepping on several at a time. They were really tiny and swimming around in all the puddles. That was 2 months ago. Now they've grown into full sized toads and, especially at night, you just never know when one is going to jump on your foot. The frogs aren't inside the house...except for that one time...so they're not really as annoying as the grasshoppers but they're still everywhere! My aunt would absolutely die, she hates hates frogs.

I probably shouldn't be complaining. People here sometimes eat 'locusts' and frogs so there are probably a lot of little kids who would otherwise be hungry but now have something to eat. I just really wish I could watch a movie or cook dinner without having one crawl up my leg.