Two Dozen Crickets...Unaccounted For

Yesterday, I went to the pet store to purchase LIVE crickets for Owen's lizard and two frogs.  They ONLY eat live crickets.  Nasty.  Disgusting.  Repulsive.  This is actually a weekly purchase.  Owen gives me $1.00 of his meager weekly $8.00 allowance and I purchase $3.30 of live crickets.  We wanted him to be at least partially accountable for the crickets, so we set up this system last summer when we purchased the lizard and frogs.  He's since asked for another lizard and frog; we told him it would be an additional $1.00 per week for the additional crickets.  He balked at this idea.  Whew.

Lucas the Lizard.  I like him best.

Anyway, I purchased 30 (actually 34) LIVE crickets yesterday.  After being hit-on by the oh-so-young (and frankly out of his league) cricket keeper at the pet store (He actually used the line - "I gave you 34 but only charged you for 30, so now you'll have to be my friend.  How old is your son because you don't look like you could be any older than me!" [19ish???]), I quickly paid for the crickets and left the store.  I met a friend at the mall, but couldn't leave the crickets in the car while I shopped because it was 30 degrees outside.  Crickets die in this weather - trust me, it's happened.  So, I had to carry the little buggers all through the mall while shopping.  Imagine how chic I felt pulling the bag of crickets out of my purse to get to my wallet...

Jail-Breaker point of exit.

When I got home, I went to the basement and emptied the crickets into their habitat.  And was unhappy to find it was broken.  One of covers on the long tubes was broken off.  I found the broken piece and placed it over the end, making a mental note that I needed to secure it with duct tape later.  Haha.  Right.  I didn't even give that a second thought.  I had more shopping to do that day and a birthday party to finish planning for the next day.

So here I am.  It's now day two since I purchased the 34 crickets.  I went to feed the pets tonight and was NOT HAPPY to find the cover gone.  And nearly all of the crickets gone.  Hasta la bye-bye.  Missing.  Not even a chirp in the basement to be heard.  No skittering of little cricket legs.

I did a quick count:

Two never made it.

34 initial crickets

6 fed to pets yesterday

2 dead on the bottom of the habitat

2 in the other long tube (The idiots!  Now fed to the lizard.  I like him best.)

That leaves two dozen missing crickets.  I scanned the bottom of the frog cage thinking Owen had fed them to the frogs (he likes the frogs best).  No dice.  Not a single living, moving cricket.  Just two sets of giant hungry frog eyes staring at me.

He claims he has no clue where they went...

I went upstairs and asked Owen if he had noticed the cricket habitat was broken.  He had.  But he didn't know what happened to the other two dozen remaining crickets...

It's a mystery.  With any luck it will remain such.  And here's hoping they don't figure out how to breed!