A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Cicada script
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Listen

(THEME)

Tim Russell: I'm a cicada. I'm going to die in a few days so I'm not making any big career plans. I hatched, I molted, and now I'm going to take my proboscis and find myself a nice female with a good strong abdomen for laying eggs in trees. Lot of pressure there, but that's how it is. A quick courtship and we just wave our feelers around and touch each other's thorax and have sex and die. It's a short life and I'm starting to regret the seven days I spent learning to speak English. Half my life in school, going over verb tenses and all that, and why? Just so I could tell you about cicadas and appeal for your understanding and ask you not to freak out if one of us flies up in your face— I mean, we're just bugs! We're not going to bite you!!! But no, people just stomp on us. And I've wasted my life learning your language so I could tell you this and now guess what? I'm too weak to have sex! What a bummer! The one thing I was born to do and now I'm too tired to have sex!

Sue Scott (FEMALE CICADA): (SINGING IN CICADA)

TR: Or maybe not.

SS (FEMALE): CICADA FLIRTING

TR: Ooooo. What a beautiful thorax you have. Touch me with your feelers. Mmmmmm.

(MUSICAL BUTTON)