My first cricket-hunting experience: unsuccessful

Yesterday, I woke up feeling like I didn't sleep well, but couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered at 10:00 last night when this stupid cricket starting chirping. It was so loud I thought it was in our house. I was determined to not let it ruin another night of sleep, so I went hunting for it. I found it on the little concrete ledge in our window well, just sitting ever so still. I just stared at it for a few minutes. Was this a cricket or some spider? I didn't know what a cricket looked like and it was really dark outside. The window well was looking awfully deep. Would I be able to get out if I jumped in? I think so. So I checked for any other bugs or poisonous spiders. All clear. If I jumped in, would the cricket freak out and fly around and attack me? I wouldn't want the neighbors to come outside and find me in the window well screaming, they might think I am crazy. Better check. There were no rocks around to throw at it, so I went for the next best thing - the bark chips from our flower bed. So I threw a couple pieces at it, hopefully trying to kill it. Duh. Throwing wood chips at a cricket is not going to kill it, especially if you miss! The wood chips must have scared it, so it started to crawl into the rock/leaves/rubble in the window well. I had to act quickly, so I jumped in and just started stomping and jumping on the rubble, hoping to smash the cricket. But it was too late, the cricket got away and started to chirp again. Sorry for wasting your time with this stupid story, but I thought I should let you know that if you see a cricket, don't think about it, just kill it or you will lose sleep! I'll keep you updated if I find it again. Next time, it will be dead!