Billions of periodical cicada nymphs are right now digging exit tunnels, and soon, they’ll climb out of the earth and swarm the treetops, creating a deafening racket. It happens in the D.C. region once every 17 years.

For many people who were kids the last time the Brood X cicadas emerged, in 2004, the event was a formative experience.

“I’ve always been really into bugs, and so when they came, I thought it was like the coolest thing that had ever happened,” says Jamie Davidow, who was a 3rd grader at the time.

For others, the sudden appearance of masses of stocky, beady-eyed insects, shedding exoskeletons on sidewalks and lawns, bordered on traumatic. Ploi Swatdisuk, who was a high school senior in 2004, is not looking forward to this year’s emergence.

“I’m actually a little a little anxious about it,” Swatdisuk says. “Like, when are they coming? Are they coming tomorrow?”

We spoke to a number of people about their childhood cicada recollections. Here are their stories.

‘The cicadas saved many people from listening to horrible music’ — Gabe Katzman, 5th grader

I grew up in Silver Spring, Md., and now I live in Washington, D.C.

There was something kind of novel about these cicadas that were everywhere. I remember leaving for school in the morning and just stepping like, “crunch, crunch, squish, squish” on the way to the bus. And I remember friends saying, “Have you eaten one yet?” And everyone spreading rumors that they’ve been eating the cicadas.

Every spring we had an outdoor concert, and just like normal, we got set up and everything and people showed up. It started with our music director going out and talking on a microphone with two large amps. You cannot hear anything that she says. Then she turns around and we start playing. And nobody in the audience can hear anything because of the deafening cicadas all around us. It’s probably for the best because we were an elementary school band, so I’m sure the cicadas saved many people from listening to horrible music.

I’ve had 2021 circled on my calendar for a long time just because I think that this is like such an interesting natural phenomenon, something you would see on Planet Earth. Everyone I talk to is not excited for it. I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I just think it’s going to be so cool and interesting. And then we’ll look forward to 2038.

‘This was the Tide Pod challenge of my generation’ — Ploi Swatdisuk, high school senior

I grew up in Northern Virginia, in Fairfax to be specific. It was the stressful senior year in high school and the cicadas were popping out. We had a parking lot that connected to the school through this wooded trail. And every single morning when I would drive to school and walk to the buildings, the trail itself would essentially just be covered in piles of vomit.

It took me a little while to figure out it was because the boys were daring each other to eat live cicadas, and you won when your partner threw up. I just remember being really, really unimpressed by boys at that age.

Yeah, this was the tide pod challenge of my generation. We make fun of Gen Z for the Tide Pods, but we were munching on cicadas long before they came up with the Tide Pods.

I’ll be honest, maybe this is vomit PTSD, but I’m really not looking forward to just the cicada guts that’s going to be all over the sidewalk. It’s just so gross, just splotches of when people are trampling them. I’m not really looking forward to it, and I don’t know who could be except like maybe a wildlife biologist.

‘I just loved the exoskeletons, I thought was incredible’ — Jamie Davidow, 3rd grader

I was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up across the river in McLean, Va., and I now live in Arlington, Va.

I just thought the sound was so cool, and their eyes were so interesting and creepy. I kind of just wanted to know everything about them. It just seemed really wild that they emerged so randomly, it seemed to such a young person.

Every morning, my dad and mom would read the newspaper and give me the KidsPost to read with my little fake coffee. In it they put out a call for who could collect the most exoskeletons. And I took it very, very seriously. I went all over our neighborhood with big plastic bags that my mom gave me, and I would ask people if I could go through and search their yard because I so badly wanted to win the KidsPost competition. I thought it was extremely cool. It ended up being really, really fun, and my class ended up participating, and I think we collected something like 3,000 in total. There’s this silly photo of me holding tons and tons of plastic bags of exoskeletons, that my mom loved.

‘It’s a new way for marking time in my life’ — Elizabeth England, high school senior

I grew up in Montgomery County, Damascus and Olney to be specific, and now I live in College Park, Md. It was 2004, and I was finishing up my senior year of high school. I was taking an AP environmental science class at the time, and I admit I wasn’t doing super great in the course. Our teacher had offered extra credit for any student who would eat a cicada.

I was initially considering it — I thought maybe, you know, baking them into cookies or something. But then I found out the extra credit was only valid if you ate the whole bug and it had to be done in front of class. So I and everyone else declined that opportunity.

I was 17 years old exactly the last time that this happened and now I’m 34 and have a child of my own. He’s almost two, so it’s going to be really interesting to see him experiencing this.

I hadn’t thought about that at all until we started this conversation, but it’s a new way for marking time in my life — not just, you know, counting years or decades, but counting by cicadas.

‘Sometimes you just want eat alone and not in the company of of romance’ — Claudia Pors, 8th grader

I grew up in Arlington and have been around Northern Virginia my entire life. Around here, summer’s already hot and sticky and uncomfortable. Back then, I had a school uniform, so just being under layers of dark polyester and this soundtrack just adding to the aggravation that was my 14-year-old existence.

The cicadas are just always on everywhere, there was never really a moment of pause from the cicadas. They were just always buzzing or humming or singing, and then they would be everywhere. So if you were walking by a tree to get away from the sun, there would be cicada shells on the tree trunk. And then — oh, look, there’s a cicada just fell almost on my head. Or if you’re sitting on a bench at picnic table, you’re just trying to talk with your friends, and then there went two cicadas kind of getting romantic. And I’m like, that’s not necessarily what you want all the time. Sometimes you just wanna eat alone and not in the company of of romance.

Now, I’m kind of excited — now I’m looking forward to it a little bit, mostly because I’ve been talking to my friends who are not from this area. I’m hoping that it’s at least dramatic enough for short enough time so it can sort of prove to them, like, see, this is real. This is actually a dramatic event around here.

Around here, I feel like with weather, like a storm or hurricane or or a snowstorm, we always get a lot of hype and then it just never lives up to it. So because I’ve been hyping the cicadas and and, you know, cicadageddon, I’m hoping it lives up to the hype.

Have you seen cicadas? Eaten a cicada? Tell us about it, or send a photo to cicadas@wamu.org.