Lately, I seem to be waging a war against nature (or some semblance of it). Not like I have anything against it, I mean I was a "tree-hugger Environmental Science" major. But man, sometimes ...
Last night I was awoken at midnight by what I thought was my neighbors doing major renovations on their house right next to my bedroom window. It took me a little while to figure out that it was a cicada doing it's "whirp whirp whiiiiiiiiiirp" thing ... in the middle of the night. While not unheard of, it is kind of strange and especially loud and disturbing when the nasty insect has attached itself to your window screen to do its little "hump-hump-hump-meeeeeeee" call. So I did what anyone would do: I flicked it. Poor thing bounced around against the outside light for a good 15 minutes before getting the point that it indeed was night and time to sleep.
Two nights before that, I had the most horrifying dreams. I was dismembered, burned alive in lava ... all while waiting for some sort of rescue helicopter that never showed up. The inspiration for such horror, it turns out, was a cat in heat prowling around on my balcony. You have to understand that cats never come up there, so an especially adventurous and horny one at 3AM was disconcerting. Combine this with the fact that I had been awoken by yowling and was just a tad out of it ... well I was terrified. I really had to go to the bathroom but the bathroom has a window overlooking the balcony and I was convinced the cat would try to get me. I held my pee-break until morning. I've been instilled with plenty of Hmong spiritual legendry so in that half-sleeping state I was utterly sure that the cat was bringing ill-will (which is what they do in Hmong belief apparently).
It all turned out fine in the end ... or so I thought. I giggled about it the next day, went to school, and came back. It was then that I discovered the little weenie had chowed on my carefully-tended mint plants.
Damn you nature!