Grasshoppers 4 ; Skippy 0

I didn't think that life in the country could get any more...rustic. I was wrong. Very very wrong. And by rustic I mean that the lack of Internet service has been oddly balanced by the increase in grasshoppers. Until today, when we had a separate satellite installed, we didn't have enough of a signal to get email, let alone play on the information highway. Hence the lack of posts, as well as total ignorance of what everyone else has been writing about. It has been lovely to spend time outside though. Except for the grasshopping bastards, who seem to be out to get me ever since I caught this guy trying to get in the bedroom window.  

The following afternoon, I was feeding Roy and Bernard, a couple of feral cats who hang out in my mother's backyard; bending over to fill a cat dish, and a grasshopper jumped down the front of my shirt and got stuck in my bra.

It was disgusting. Generally speaking, it takes a rodent to turn me into a shrieking first grader- except that's exactly what happened. I flashed the ferals in an exaggerated effort to get the nasty grasshopper away from my skin.In the flailing that followed,  I have no idea where it landed, but it must have been at least 6 feet away.  I had just recovered from the horror of the bra episode, when coming home from the Ace Hardware on Highway 133, I had another run-in. I was sailing along at 55 mph, not a care in the world, with the dog riding shotgun. We had the window down about four inches, because any more than that is simply too tempting for him, when something ( I swear it was a rock) flew through the open window and smacked me in the face, right under the eye. By the time I got home, I had a big red welt and it was starting to swell. When I opened the car door to get out, I looked down to find a huge grasshopper dead in my lap. He had apparently committed suicide on my face. Over the years, I've had some unfortunate incidences involving clumsiness on my part, but there is no way this was my fault. This was another heinous act by a grasshopping bastard. The next moring when I got up to pee the dog, a smaller grasshopping version dive bombed us, and whacked me in the back of the head.Hard. It hurt. While I was complaining, my husband told me he'd noticed way more grasshoppers than usual, but reminded me that we are in fact, living in the country, and also that I've been outside more than usual, because of the crappy internet connection, my ass isn't permanently parked in front of my laptop. I replied I didn't care and would like to visit my son in NYC, where I was sure the sidewalks were grasshopper-free. In the mean time, I planned to stay inside during peak grasshopping hours. This morning, while in the shower, I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, and opened my eyes to find a new grasshopper glaring at me (yes, he was!) from between the shower curtain and liner. The asshole was impervious to my swearing at him. Finally my husband heard the stream of obscenities, emerged through the steam and handled grasshopper removal. I'm sure the jackass came right back inside at the first opportunity. (I mean the grasshopper, not my husband)

So...it's a trade-off.

 Bucolic country life...lovely surroundings... relaxed environment...when you're not dodging suicidal insects. 

Maybe they're just pissed about the lousy internet signal, too.