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roundin’ up stuff

Yep, therein lies the problem. Texas crickets are a whole other country. Wait, Texas is a whole other country. Texas crickets are a whole other insect, compared to puny crickets in other states.

Reminds me of back home, down south of Houston, in the tropics, on the Coast, where the humidity would be like walking into a shower when you stepped outside in the mornin’.

Why, when we weren’t spittin’ in the face of another row of huge hurricanes and fightin’ brush fires, we were roundin’ up mosquitoes, saddling ’em up, and going on roach hunts.

We’d have to roust out the Gulf Coast roaches, see. They were a motley group of insects. They’d be mustering to take over the smaller towns, forming special interest groups, playing havoc with the Lege up in Austin with soft money and whatnot.

Roaches in Austin ain’t even close. Lemmetellyew, Gulf Coast roaches can be heard walkin’ around in the night time, hanging out in the dark corners just outside your basic peripheral vision, making whispery noises that’ll scare the bravest amongst ya.

Anyways, everyone from miles around would gather to defend the lands from these mean-spirited and obnoxious insects. Neighbors and strangers, rich and poor, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents, all races, cultures, religions or no religions, all us humans would form defense units and head out, up country, down country.

Left behind, the womenfolk would be a’weepin’ and lamentin‘, wringing hands and whathaveyou. As we rode away to our destiny, dogs running about barking, babies crying, cats hiding out in the a/c, mockingbirds smirking and doin’ bad impressions of saber-tooth tigers singing lounge music.

Why, I’ve seen many a strong man get faint and all queasy when we’d ride up unexpectedly on a pack of Gulf Coast roaches, a mean bunch of insects, you can be sure, all sittin’ around in a circle, ‘round a cracklin’ campfire, with their buddies the rattlesnakes and coral snakes and cottonmouths, all a’chewin’ tobacco and spitting and hissing at us, once they spied us ridin’ into sight.

We’d kick our mosquitoes into a full gallop and hit ’em head on, full automatic fire, grenade launchers, that sort of thing. Them roaches would stand up (lemme tell you, that’s a fearsome sight), sneer at us, and say unforgivable things about our trucks, our boats, our deer stands up in Hutto. Pretty horrible. It’d be a scene you’d want to straightaway flush out of your mind, say, with a healthy dose of Ally McBeal episodes.

After such a war, why, we’d head on home, maybe stopping at the local taverns, see, and sit around with our cricket friends, the mosquitoes all outside restin’ and talkin’ among themselves, too, and we’d have some cold ones and chat about our exploits, escapades, mutual funds and 1040 forms.

Them were the days. As the night wore on and the brewskies flowed, our good Texas cricket friends would strike up a perky cheerful finger-snappin’ chorus, a song or two, some snappy tunes with melodies to remember and, later, hum softly when ridin’ patrol alone on the silent endless salt grass plains, down on the Coast, the beaches stretching out into the dusk with the distant lights of offshore rigs and chemical plants twinklin’ and blinkin’ in the deepening dark sky, a sad tired pale moon rising up overhead, the distant rumble of new towering hurricanes queuing up in the Gulf…

Back when this was written in October 28, 1999, roaches and mosquitoes in Austin, Texas, were indeed a trifling compared to their Gulf Coast counterparts. No more. First, the growing zones shifed up by one. Then, it just got hotter. Worse, the roaches don’t look right. Hybrids. DNA. We’re screwed. Vermont looks good from here. No, wait, Canada. No, wait, North Pole. Maybe Santa will save our clueless fossil-burning asses. Wait.

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Any resemblance of anyone in these fiction stories and seemingly disassociated ramblings about anybody living, dead, or in altered states is purely coincidental, all the character names are absolutely made up or chosen from thin air, products of overworked minds, figments of our imaginations, just a coincidence, stuff that occurred to us while driving to work or standing in line at the grocery store, above reproach, maybe a bit o’ satire now and then if we knew how to write satire, clearly an accident, we have no clue, ask our therapist, buy a Texas Lottery number, plant a tree, not our fault, we have no idea what happened, we were in Lonesome Town at that time or some other place, who knows, we don’t know, no one knows, and if we did know, we’d write a story about it. Written by Arden Henderson.

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