I Dread The Night — In Oklahoma

Oklahoma nights are alive and pitch black. Out here in the country, with barely any street lights and almost no light pollution from my tiny new town, the dark feels heavier, like it's pressing against the windows, hiding whatever moves outside.

In this new climate, I lie awake listening, bracing for whatever creature will creep out of the shadows next. The fear hums in my chest, steady, and unrelenting.

Last night, I woke to clicking. The sound was unmistakable — the rapid tap of tiny claws on hardwood, the exact rhythm my little dog makes when he trots across the floor. Then, silence. Then, the soft shuffle of something slipping under my bed.

But Bruno, my hero, a chocolate brown chi-weenie, was in the laundry room, fast asleep, cuddled underneath his pink and white country quilt.

My blood went cold. I bent to look under the bed. Nothing.

I left the lamp on. I queued up a spiritual podcast. My skin and scalp felt like I was covered in bugs but I told myself I was fine. Eventually, drowsiness won, and I turned off the lamp.

In the exact moment I fell asleep the sound returned, sharper this time.

I fumbled for the switch — and there it was. A massive black cricket. And this one had wings. It buzzed confidently from floor, to wall, to curtain, a jittery helicopter trapped in my room.

How in God’s name did it get in here?

“No No No.” My voice shook. I grabbed the Swiffer by the door and swung — not to kill, just to push it back into the shadows until morning. Then I’d help it get back outside.

But the cricket had other plans. It felt like he was in charge. I’m wondering if Oklahoma is trying to kick me out or toughen me up?

I called Bruno, my would-be guard dog, but he only lifted his head, unimpressed. One mention of “snack” got him on his feet — but he had no interest in being my knight.

Fine. I moved the step stool where the cricket was hiding or playing dead, and I crushed it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, shaking. It wasn’t just the bug. It was what the bug represented: the countless other things I couldn’t see, lurking just out of reach.

A few months ago, I found a pincher bug in my bed. How do I know this? Because it pinched me, when I was in my bed. Another crawled onto my coffee cup only minutes after I’d taken my first drink. “Oh… did you make this for me?” Brazen pincher bugs.

I maintain a well kept home — I do my laundry, wash my dishes daily, take the trash out without fail. Still, the invaders keep coming: cockroaches, an army of ants that took over my kitchen and refused to surrender for weeks, a sack of baby spiders bursting open in my bedroom window and traveling on the ceiling and walls as if on I35. They were smaller than the size of a pin head, but still, I bet there were hundreds of them. The odd looking grasshoppers with frog legs springing into the house that love to greet me at 1 AM in my bathroom when I have to pee, those are fun too.

And then there are the stories. Friends here swear skinwalkers are real. I laugh it off — until the nights a cat perches on my back step around 1 a.m., its meow warped into something that sounds like “hello.” Like it’s asking to be let inside.

“Don’t,” my friends warned. “It could be a skinwalker.”

To me there’s always a deeper hidden meaning and nothing happens by accident.

My fears have materialized.

A few weeks ago the police knocked on my door. “Ma’am, did you give these men permission to plug their extension cord into the outlet in your shed?” I tell them No and explain that if it’s helping them to keep cool during these 100+ degree days I didn’t mind. They were living in a shed directly behind me but apparently they weren’t people just down on their luck, they were the town criminals and not the petty theft kind. Supposedly one was just released for drug possession and rape.

I checked my shed, yep, my bikes had been stolen. I have no idea who took them or when they went missing. I filed a police report.

The neighbor two doors down has a huge bull-mastiff that he chains to a large tree when he isn’t home and sometimes he’s abandoned outside for more than a day or two. The dog barks incessantly with no breaks, I’m guessing he’s scared too, like me. I’ve called the local police, I have to submit a complaint in writing in order for them to do anything. I feel guilty and helpless. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, I just want to sleep at night, and I want him to have loving, caring owners.

As I write this, he’s quiet. The cardinals, blue jays, and starlings are singing and cawing. It’s cloudy and overcast giving us a break from the earth scorched summer season which means the tornadoes will soon return and then so will the ice storms.

What did I do? Why couldn’t I manifest a cute little casita in New Mexico?

It honestly feels like Oklahoma is either trying to kick me out or jump me into its gang, maybe both. I’m a whimp. Fine. I’m not from here. I’m from little suburbia, Colorado. House spiders and garter snakes were the biggest threat.

I know this is for the thickening of my skin and for elevating my bravery. I’ve only been brave in theory unless you consider it brave to help people remove clutter and lots of trash and other not so favorable things from their homes. Single motherhood and dropping out of college to start a business with zero business owning skills also could be construed as brave, or irresponsible.

Back to the bugs.

I don’t know how long I’ll survive Oklahoma nights. Even though the days have their challenges, they are more manageable, and I can at least see what’s coming at me or for me. This overdramatized rant of seemingly non-threatening beings will eventually culminate into something harmless. I do love my little town of five thousand people where everyone seems to know everyone else, with smiles on their faces, and daily greetings of hellos and how are ya’s.

As a self-prescribed measure, I like taking a drive at sunset and capturing the colors and clouds in the sky. The cows eating grass, the sound of locusts in the trees, and deer hopping from one patch of land to the next, all help me to prepare for the impending doom of night.

Today, I fight back. I’ll march into ACE Hardware, buy a can of WD-40, and coat every baseboard and window frame. The handyman on YouTube promised it keeps the bugs out — and kills on contact.

It’ll have to do.

Oh….and I forgot to mention the ants have returned to the kitchen window so I’ve set out fresh bait and every morning I have to rinse the gnats out of the bathtub.

I also took a job writing for the local newspaper in my town and I start tomorrow. If anything, these little pests have given me some good material to write about for all of you.

Now to clean up some cricket guts and get my outfit ready for my first office job in over ten years.