My big dog has started catching crickets and bringing them in the house. She drops them on the kitchen floor and bats them around, pouncing on them if they jump. Each cricket lasts about three minutes, except for the one that made it to safety under the refrigerator.
I asked her, “Lu, did you know that the Chinese people think having a cricket in the house brings good luck?”
She seemed to ponder this for awhile, her right front paw holding down a shiny smallish cricket, and she said, “Do they specify as to whether it has to be a living cricket?”
Hmmm. I didn’t know. I thought about it as I got out the dustbuster or as Lu calls it, “the cricket coffin,” and sucked up three unrecognizable mashed flat cricket corpses. After another minute or so, I told Lu I wasn’t sure about the living/dead thing and I didn’t have a Chinese friend to call on to confirm the correct answer.
Her cinnamon-colored eyes looked at me with derision, the cricket dangling by one back leg pressed between her black lips. “Mmmkemeeeyah.”
“What?” I ask.
She drops the crippled cricket and says, “Haven’t you ever heard of Wikipedia?” and bats the cricket into a beautiful bank shot off the dog food bucket, through the laundry room door, straight down the basement stairs, and all the way to the bottom.
Well, either way, I think, it’s not good luck for the cricket.
