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"giant cicadas and other odd indignities"
               · southern fried weirdness online 
                (january 2008)

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"giant cicadas and other odd indignities"
by dr. philip edward kaldon

Southern Fried Weirdness Online
http://southernfriedweirdness.blogspot.com/2008/01/giant-cicadas-and-other-odd-indignities.html

Life used to be a lot simpler when the cicadas came out 
of the ground only once every seventeen years -- you could 
depend on things like that.  Not anymore.  Not since they 
dropped those nasty radiological dirty bombs on the East 
Coast.  We didn't get hit directly here in North Carolina, 
but you could say we've been dealing with fallout of sorts 
for years.

The cicada which clung to the fake Grecian column on my 
front stoop, the column Martha insisted on putting up when 
we redid the siding a couple of years ago after I retired, 
was one of the smaller ones.  But its glassy red eyes, big 
as the carriage light globes on either side of my neighbor's 
front door, why the damn stupid thing just sort of stared 
at me while I got the mail from the box.

"Martha!" I said when I got back in the house.  "Will you 
get on the net and find out when those cicadas are supposed 
to come back?  We've got a seven-footer on the front of the 
house."
  

The cicada summer in Greensboro, North Carolina, wasn't like the ones
that Red remembered as a boy.  Not when the giant cicadas coming out 
of the ground are as big as cars -- or buses.  And that's not the 
worst of it.


Sold January 2008
Published January 2008

You can read the story here:

http://southernfriedweirdness.blogspot.com/2008/01/giant-cicadas-and-other-odd-indignities.html

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