Campus Currents

Cricket Chaos Insects on the loose!

Easy to print version

Jim Paillot

Let's say you have a friend with a bearded dragon who asks you to babysit the reptile in your dorm room, just for a little while. The dragon conveniently comes with its own food supply—several hundred crickets. You say yes, even though you're kind of creeped out by the crickets. Then you head off for class—and the food supply makes a getaway. True story. It happened in Devine last winter. Escaping from their box, the crickets spread through the halls, eliciting screams, frantic phone calls, and text messages—until exterminators armed with vacuum cleaners came to the rescue. In the end, since only "nondangerous" fish are allowed in dorms, the bearded dragon was banished.