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Brood X Is On Its Way

© Eugenia E. Gratto

The latest buzz in Washington D.C. has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with bugs. Sometime in the next few weeks, Brood X will burst forth from the ground, covering the metropolitan area and making the city even louder than it usually is.

Brood X is a clan of 17-year periodical cicadas, a harmless yet noisy insect that is generally found in the eastern U.S. The Washington D.C. area gets its brush with the bugs this year for the first time since 1987. Some of those who lived through the last visit of the cicadas would rather not repeat the experience. Others of us are simply amused by the impending infestation. But this area is transient, and there are plenty of people who have never experienced anything quite like what's coming.

I was a freshman in high school the last time the cicadas came out to play, and I remember them only lasting a couple of weeks before they disappeared for good. My initial reaction was to play into every girl stereotype I could think of. I screamed. I shrieked. I hollered if one came near me. It meant I wasn't much good for stealth exercises, since the darn things were everywhere and I was either making noise...or inside.

But after a few days, or maybe a week, the bugs got less disturbing and, actually, kind of cool. It stopped bothering me when they would fly randomly into my head or shoulder as I walked from the bus stop to my house after school. I got brave enough to actually pick them up by pinching their wings between my fingers. I'd hold them until their angry buzzing got too much to bear, then would release them so they could fly or crawl away with indignance. The din of their clatter outside went from absurdly irritating to mildly comforting. And every now and then, I'd be walking along and would get to watch them mating, which, considering how tame 1987's MTV was compared to how it is now, was about the most sexual experience I could witness anywhere at that point.

After a few weeks, the cicadas disappeared, the noise abated, and things went back to normal. It doesn't take long to ride out this particular storm. Since I have no idea whether I'll still be living in the Washington D.C. area 17 years from now, I'm looking forward to getting one more shot at the cicada experience. With any luck, they'll drown out the noise coming from Capitol Hill...