You Say Cicada, I Say Locust, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

My job today is to weed the flower bed. It’s my one task for the day. Well, it’s my one yardwork kind of task at least. It shouldn’t be too difficult of a task either because I have lots of weeds to choose from.

I hate weeding. Do you?

I’m amazed by all the ways I can distract myself when faced with doing something I hate. In graduate school, even cleaning sounded better than studying. That’s bad!

Speaking of bad, that’s the way I would describe the weeds in our flower garden. I made the mistake of buying a box of seeds. Mixed Perennials. Problem is, how are you supposed to know what’s a weed and what’s a flower? It takes someone more botanically informed than me. I think at this point we’ve reached the conclusion that whatever is growing in this patch, it’s not flowers.

But look at this little treasure I found when digging through the weeds.

I used to call this a locust when I was a kid. In fact, everyone I knew called them locusts. It’s a side effect of growing up in a small, rural town. Getting the name of something right is not as important as saying it often.

In fact, my aunt had a locust tree which seemed to be chock full of them so I figured that must be where they come from.

Now I live in the “city.” It’s technically a suburb, but compared to where I grew up, this is a big city. Here, people don’t call them locusts. They’re cicadas.

We live in the part of town where the houses are really old. We have lots of locusts. Oops…I mean, cicadas.

Shakespeare once said that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. I’m here to say, that a locust by any other name still is really loud.

Break time is over. Time to get back to weeding!!