By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©

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Buck Plays a Tune!

The Mexican beagle crickets arrived five days ago. Already, the Arizona Department of Wildlife had received over 300 complaints. Not about damage, mind you—but about the music.

“They’re too dang punctual,”

one retiree griped.

“They hum like my mother-in-law when she’s judging me,”

wrote another.

One anonymous caller just yelled. “MAKE IT STOP!” for forty-two seconds before hanging up.

Buck Milford was used to desert weirdness. He’d once ticketed a man for driving a dune buggy made entirely of rattlesnake skins. But nothing prepared him for Carl Sandlins latest idea: The Great Cricket Peace Yodel.

“I’ve been listenin’ to ‘em closely,”

Carl explained, pacing in front of his yurt-slash-taco-stand.

“And I think they respond to pitch. What we got here is a musical species. They ain’t hostile—they just need harmony!”

Carl wore what he called his “diplomatic vest.” It was a sequined denim jacket with fringe. He also equipped himself with an old harmonica, a rusted washboard, and a five-gallon pickle bucket labeled AMBASSADOR DRUM.

Buck just stared at him.

“You sure you haven’t been drinking your aloe again, Carl?”

But Carl was undeterred. That night at 2:00 a.m., he set up two lawn chairs. Fifteen minutes before the crickets’ usual humming ritual, he arranged a battery-powered spotlight. He also prepared a megaphone duct-taped to a broomstick.

“Alright, fellas,”

he said into the megaphone.

“Let’s talk tunes!”

Buck sat in the cruiser, sipping lukewarm coffee, radio off. “This is going to end with him either arrested, abducted, or somehow elected,” he muttered.

At exactly 2:15 a.m., right on schedule, the desert came alive with humming.

But this time… Carl joined in.

He yodeled.

He drummed.

He played a harmonica solo that sounded like a walrus stepping on bubble wrap.

And for thirty glorious seconds… the crickets paused.

Then, they hummed louder than ever.

They didn’t just hum The Andy Griffith Show this time. They mashed it up with Achy Breaky Heart. It sounded suspiciously like a 1996 Taco Bell jingle.

Carl dropped his bucket.

“They answered me, Buck! I think we’re collaborating!”

Buck opened his door.

“Carl, I think they’re angry.”

Suddenly, thousands of beagle crickets surged toward the yurt, drawn to the sounds of tin, harmonica, and misguided ambition. They swarmed Carl’s taco stand, leapt onto the megaphone, and—somehow—turned on his margarita blender.

It spun wildly. Salsa flew.

The crickets began line-dancing.

Buck had seen a lot, but beagle crickets doing synchronized grapevines under a disco light powered by solar lawn gnomes? That was new.

The next morning, the bugs had gone quiet. Carl stood in the rubble of his salsa bar. He was shirtless and proud.

“We made contact,”

he said, eyes shining.

“They danced, Buck. They danced!”

Buck surveyed the scene: overturned lawn chairs, chewed speaker wire, a cricket still stuck in a jar of queso.

“Well, Carl,”

he said,

“either they liked your music—or they mistook you for a piñata.”

Carl smiled.

“Doesn’t matter. Tonight, I’m bringin’ in the banjo!”

SO! CARL. He is bringing in the Banjo! Will it be on his knee? And will someone named Ole Susanna show up in Chapter Five if Carl swings that Banjo too wildly? That is a story for tomorrow. So be sure to check back and see if the Mexican Beagle Crickets have segued into classical jazz. Also, will the Highway Patrol get Buck a larger fly swatter?