Something Yucky on the Stairs

"Mommy, there's something yucky on the stairs!"

When I heard Colin shrieking at me, it barely registered. I was trying to fold laundry. Besides, I hear variations of that statement all the time, and the "something yucky" is usually a pile of cat barf or a random turd or something that I do. Not. Want. To deal with.

But he persisted. "There's something yucky on the stairs!" Then he added something that made me perk up my ears: "And it's going to bite Cameron!"

Bite?? Barf doesn't bite.

Poop doesn't bite.

Only living things bite.

What kind of nasty, living, biting thing could be on my stairs?

Veeeeeery reluctantly, I put down my laundry (you know it's something gross when I'd rather be folding laundry, y'all) and crept toward the stairs, where Colin was trying valiantly to hold a curious Cameron at bay.

And then I heard it: screeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Only one thing that I know of makes that deafening, horrible, weird ticky/screechy sound ... this:
OMFG, everybody. A cicada. IN MY HOUSE. ON MY STAIRS. If you've never seen one in person before, you don't realize how huge these nasty things are ... they're like three inches freaking long. And for a bug, that's pretty damn big.

I like ladybugs. I like butterflies. I can tolerate roly-polies. But big disgusting screeching cicadas? I don't effin' think so. I'm sorry, but I go all girly when something like this comes up. It was all I could do to suppress a bloodcurdling scream and run away, hopping from one foot to the other. Instead, I quickly ushered the boys back upstairs, wishing that Curtis weren't at work.

(Then I put them to bed half an hour early, so I wouldn't have to deal with them constantly wanting to go peek at our "intruder." Thank goodness they can't tell time yet.)

As soon as they were asleep I crept back down the stairs, gingerly, as if someone were going to jump out at me. And there he was, still sitting there. I couldn't tell if he was dead or what, so I got our dog's leash and lowered it slowly toward him until it barely touched his back.

Screeeeeeeeeeeee! he said. At which point I think I might've pissed myself a little.

So, no longer having to put on a brave front for my kids' sake, I ran the hell up the stairs with surprising agility for a fat ass pregnant woman.

I haven't been back down.

He's still down there.

My cat is playing with him.

I hope she eats him.

I'm so not touching that thing.