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In 1987, two men in their 20s entered the Grand Siam restaurant in Cincinnati, and marched

up to the cash register, Shifty I'd. Mockysa Kellogg, the cashier, she felt the hairs on the back

of her neck tingle. She could read the writing on the wall, this was going to be a hold-up.

Covered in a cold adrenaline sweat, she braced herself, ready for the men to draw their weapons.

She wasn't about to risk her life for $3.35 an hour, so she immediately decided she was going

to fork over the cash without resisting. And then one of the men drew his weapon. But instead of

drawing a gun, he reached into his pocket and pulls out a huge squirming cicada. They thrust

at her, and maybe it was the element of surprise, or maybe it was just a shock of six insect legs

wriggling in her face, but Mockysa shrieked and then ran like hell. Later, when she came back

to the cash register, rattled and kind of confused, she discovered cash missing, $25.

That weapon, that cicada that was in on the 1987 Heist 34 years ago, was a brood 10 cicada.

If you live in the eastern US, you've probably been hearing a lot about these cicadas recently,

and that's because brood 10 cicadas emerge every 17 years, which is right now.

They're known as hiriotical cicadas, the type that only come out after spending long periods

of time underground. They're the neighbors you probably didn't know you had right under your

feet, and as neighbors go, they're damn noisy, and a little rude, but harmless.

Unless you're a tree root or limb, you're safe. If only Mockysa had known that.

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