When I was about 4 or 5 years old, my older brothers and I discovered two crickets living under the basement steps. We named them Donny and Marie, after the famous Osmond sibling duo who, at the time, starred in their very own hit TV variety show.

These crickets did not sound “a little bit country” or “a little bit rock and roll.” They sounded like crickets. And while Osmonds singing in your home in the middle of the night might be entertaining, the singing of crickets in your home in the middle of the night is borderline enraging.

I was reminded of this recently when I was awakened at 1am by a loud chirp. It seemed to come from the corner of the living room near the fireplace. Or maybe it was coming from inside the fireplace? The volume and pitch made it difficult to pinpoint the source from my place on the couch. After a few more tentative chirps, I turned on my cell phone’s flashlight and quietly got up to investigate.

The living room is the one room where my son is willing to sleep. He has a futon mattress on the floor covered with pillows and blankets. We call it his “crash pad.” It was originally created as a safe spot for him to have meltdowns. But one evening he curled up there to watch his iPad and fell asleep. He hadn’t put himself to sleep without intervention from his parents in a long, long time. We were delighted! He did the same the next night, and a new routine was born.

Naturally, this meant I also slept in the living room. I needed to be nearby in order to calm him if he had a meltdown or to ensure he didn’t wander and get into things if he got up early. Sleeping on the couch or a portable mattress every night seemed a minor inconvenience at the time, an intermediate step to getting him to fall asleep on his own in his bedroom.

But despite all our attempts to get him to sleep in his bedroom—trying various mattresses and bed arrangements, adding a small TV, and even moving his bedroom into the small office next to our bedroom—he simply refused to sleep anywhere but the living room. Because my son has nonverbal autism, there is no way for him to tell us why he finds the living room most conducive for sleep, but his preference is obvious.

His dad and I choose our battles. In choosing our battles, we make a lot of compromises. Many standoffs end in us simply adapting and moving on. It feels like we don’t have many actual wins. And the solution to one problem often leads to the creation of another…like him sleeping in the living room, possibly FOREVER.

But honestly, if my son wants to sleep in the living room—fine. Because the operative word in that sentence is sleep. He’s always been a terrible sleeper, therefore we’ll do just about anything to get him to fall asleep and stay asleep…including allowing him to sleep in the living room every night.

So my son and I have slept in the living room for several years now. This was the first time in all those years we were ever serenaded by a cricket.

Desperate to silence the cricket before it woke my boy, I shined the light into the corner under the TV and the area surrounding the fireplace. Sensing he was being hunted, the cricket was careful to sing intermittently, with long pauses between chirps, causing me to freeze and wait, glowing cell phone in hand, frustration growing in my foggy, half-asleep brain.

CHIRP!!!

I whipped the beam of my flashlight along the floorboards and saw nothing.

CHIRP!!!

I whipped the other way. The sound filled the room. I couldn’t even be sure I was looking in the right direction. I considered the idea that maybe some creatures have the ability to pick up on vibes of particular depth and passion, so I sent a telepathic message to the cricket: “I. Will. Kill. You.”

He called my bluff.

CHIRP!!!

I switched on the kitchen light, hoping enough light would filter into the living room to trick him into thinking it was daytime. This was surprisingly effective!

The next night, however, he was back at it again. Only this time, he began his singing earlier and was more bold, undeterred by the kitchen light. The chirping started in the living room, but moved to the dining room. For a panicked moment, I worried there might be more than one cricket. A sibling duo, perhaps. I enlisted my husband in the search, at which point the chirping stopped.

After a long stretch of silence, my husband went to bed and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I opened the bathroom door a few minutes later, there he was…the cricket…his shiny, black shell contrasting against the floor tile just inside the entryway to the kitchen.

We both froze. Our eyes locked. We remained in this standoff for several moments in which, I swear, a dust ball tumbled by and the whistle from a cowboy western could be heard in the distance.

Then…a twitch. The cricket’s wings moved ever so slightly. CHIIIIIRRRRPP!!!!

I sprang into action, leaping over him to snatch a blue, plastic cup from the drying rack. The cricket, startled by my unexpected agility, jumped straight up instead of forward, giving me the opening to slam the cup over him before he could find cover in the pantry.

My husband wasn’t sleeping yet when I stuck my head in the door to the bedroom. “I got him!” I whispered triumphantly. “I need some help!”

I slipped an envelope under the blue cup, ensuring there were no gaps between the rim and the paper through which the cricket could escape. My husband held open the back door while I carefully carried my captive outside. With the satisfaction of a Wild West bartender removing an unruly patron from an old-timey saloon, I threw our unwelcome guest out into the rainy night.

My husband pumped his fist and said exactly what I was thinking at that moment, “WE WIN!”

Yeah, it was nice to have a win. A clear, uncompromising win.

The following week was quiet…a little too quiet.
In the basement man-cave,
somewhere behind the computer desk,
the chirp of a lone cricket was heard.