Jiminy Cricket

When we walked in the house after getting back from our trip to Minnesota, I went first to the panel to turn off the alarm. Joe was following shortly behind me and headed straight for the basement. Puzzled, I opened my ears to hear the sound of water rushing, followed by silence as he unplugged the sump pump, which had blown a gasket, and was busily pumping away, sending the water in the pit mostly onto the cover, where it would promptly fall back into the hole. I'm not sure how long this had been going on, but it was long enough for the motor to have heated the water well into the point of steaming. (Has to happen when you're out of town, doesn't it...)

The next weekend, I put fixing the pump high on my list of priorities - rain is coming, and the pump definitely keeps my basement drier. As I walked over to the sump pump pit one of the basement crickets hopped ahead of me and jumped straight into the hole. While I'm all about catch and release when it comes to most bugs, I was not about to reach down into the hole to try to catch the little guy.  

I'd already picked up the replacement backflow valve, so I moved on, leaving him to his fate. I pulled the pump out of the hole - and found I'd picked up the wrong part. *sigh*  Back to the store with me, this time with the offending broken piece in had so I was SURE to get the right whizmagig.

Home again, it didn't take too long to swap out the valves. As I lifted the pump to put it back where it had started, I noticed my friend the cricket, clinging to the corrugated side of the pit. I guess it was too deep for him to make the leap out o his own. I still couldn't figure out a good way to safely get him out of there, so I moved on once again. After I finished tightening down the clamps holding the pipes in place, I needed to test my repair, so went and got the hose to fill the pit with enough water to trigger the pump.

The water started blasting in, and my forlorn bug friend found himself a pretty good perch on the top of the float. He rode there for a bit, but fell into the water once the pump activated itself.  I said a little prayer for his shortened life, and continued my test. Satisfied my repair would hold, I turned the water off and returned to the corner to start cleaning up my toys.

The cricket was floating on top of the water, feebly struggling, but alive. I couldn't just let him drown after he'd survived the great flood, so I positioned the hose beneath him, lifted him out of the water and set him down on the floor next to the pit. I ran upstairs to get a cup and a stiff piece of paper - he had barely moved before I got back to the basement.

I put the cup over him, the paper underneath, and carried him up and out into the sunshine. I set the trap onto the grass, lifted off the cup, and had the satisfaction of watching him perk up, shake himself off, and hop off to wherever he went.

His startled leap into the pit had unexpectedly ended well. (While a little worse for the wear, he actually landed ahead in the game, since I'm sure he prefers the great outdoors to the hard cold stone basement.)

These days, I often feel as if resistance is futile; as if my efforts to make a difference in this world amount to little more than nothing. I appreciated the reminder that, sometimes, a small effort on my part can make a big difference in the life of another. 

Even if it is only a cricket.