by Martha Gray Sasser ’27
May 2024
The cicadas have begun digging their way out of their burrows to haunt us for the next five weeks.
Cicadas are an insect that is primarily found in the eastern and midwestern parts of the United States. With more than 3,000 species of cicadas, there are two categories that they fall into.
The first are annual cicadas; these are the ones that dig their way up every year. The second type of cicada is the periodical cicadas, which spend most of their life underground, and then emerge every decade.
The cicadas that are currently attacking us in Tennessee are the Brood XIX and the Great Southern Brood. These bugs are coming for us. They have gotten restless after sitting in the ground for 17 years. The amount of times I have wanted to sit outside on the front lawn, eat lunch and hang out with my friends only for there to be a swarm of dead cicadas on the ground is disgusting.
They crawl out of the ground and “sing” us some great songs, then decide it is time to lay eggs on tree branches before they die. What if we got rid of all trees then the cicadas would be forced to die, and we would not have to put up with them?
Cicadas also shed their skin in order to keep growing, since their hard exoskeleton won’t allow it otherwise. The thought of having cicada skin all over the ground, and the thought of having them stuck in your shoes is gross. The fact that they have the audacity to come up out of the ground and annoy us every few weeks is enough. We don’t also need them to shed their skin. If you are going to shed your skin, at least pick up after yourself, please. When a crab sheds their shell, another crab can use it, but cicadas don’t reuse or recycle. They just leave them there for us to deal with. Crab shells are cool and pretty, but cicada skins are just gross.
Besides the littering, what helpful things do Cicadas bring to the world? On a list of the most unusual bugs and why they are unusual, some bugs are actually cool. For instance, the Giant Stick Insect has the best camouflage, and the heaviest bug is Goliath Beetle. But, what does the cicada bring to the table? It gets the “Loudest” award.
So you’re telling me that the coolest thing about this bug is that it is loud? We get to sit here with the world loudest bug, and the one thing it does is when it dies it helps the soil. This is not worth it, to me, to have to put up with.
Some people also have an obsession with these bugs. Why are people picking them up and carrying them around? The amount of people I have seen with cicadas in their hands or hanging off of them is revolting. I’ve been watching lower school students squat on the ground touching these bugs and playing with them like they are pets — it needs to stop. They are gross. Why do you have like 500 in your hand or hanging on your body? No one thinks it’s cool. If anything, everyone thinks it is gross. Instead of putting them on you, kill the dang things.
In my opinion, we should just kill cicadas. We shouldn’t have to put up with this type of stuff anymore. Cicadas are going to be the pain of my existence for the next few weeks. How are we supposed to take our exams if we have to listen to them?
I will be giving everyone my best wishes to be able to survive this traumatizing time.
