LAST LAUGH

Cricket hitches a ride

One perfect day in 1972 when I was 10, I was visiting my grandparents with a handful of relatives. We were strolling around the spacious front yard of their farm.

I was very proud of my new high-fashion red jeans. These were not just regular bell-bottoms, which were all the rage at the time, but super bell-bottoms, what we dubbed “elephant pants.” The flare was about a foot wide—I had to put rubber bands around the ankles when I rode my bike to keep the jeans from getting stuck in the chain.

As we continued our peaceful walk, I felt a strange sensation on one leg. With horror, I realized an insect was inside one leg of my flared pants, jumping around. “Help! Help!” I screamed. My dad, fearing I was catastrophically injured, raced to my side. “What’s wrong?”

“A cricket jumped up my pants leg! Get it out! Get it out!” I jerked my leg higher and higher, kicking like a Rockette.

Soon the walkers gathered around. I rolled up the pants leg, looking for the offending critter. It was no use—the cricket jumped farther up my pants leg. Then, horror upon horror, my practical dad said, “Pull down your pants so we can shake it out.”

“Noo!” I screeched. But was removing my pants in front of assorted relatives worse than having a cricket traverse my leg?

What must be done, must be done. The adults instructed the snickering cousins to turn around and resume walking as I dropped my pants. As soon as the pants came down, the hideous cricket was spotted, right on what my farm relatives called my “hinder.” As the cricket jumped to freedom, it seemed

• just as happy to escape as I was to see it leave.

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