Oh my goodness, friends, I just smote a centipede that was, like, 6 inches long. Okay, really and truly, it was only 2+ inches long. But it was climbing the wall in my shower! Do you know what happens when a very nearsighted person gets into the shower with a big bug? She leans in close to see what that big dark smudge is, that's what she does. Just ask the person who still gets the shudders thinking about her up-close shower encounter with a silverfish in 1990.
Gah! I just did an image search for silverfish, a beastie I'd never encountered until I moved to the Midwest. It was going to be a friendly blogger thing, in which I said, "Here, let me show you what I'm talking about just in case you're unacquainted with the silverfish." But it turns out the friendly blogger course of action is to close the tab and step away. And bleach the brain. There are too many bugs in this world, my friends.
But! Back to the point: there is one less bug in the world than there was earlier this evening. I started to ask for help, but then I remembered something Elwood said to me years ago when there was a different big ugly bug causing me a different flavor of distress. He said, in a voice both kind and disbelieving, "Jamie, you have been through childbirth five times. You can handle a bug."
I repeated these words to myself. Jamie, you have been through childbirth five times. You can handle a bug. I fetched the WMD (Weapon of Millipede Destruction in this instance; I cannot distinguish between a centipede and millipede reliably but I do know that WCDs are not a thing). My flyswatter was no match for its exoskeleton, but as it wriggled, stunned but clearly plotting its revenge, I crushed it in my fist* and laid its carcass on the pyre** for destruction.
*carefully shielded by a tissue -- a bare-handed bug-crusher would not have to psych herself up first by thinking about childbirth
**if by pyre we mean the garbage can
I was going to write another post about plans and productivity tonight, but sometimes duty calls. Or sometimes duty slithers up the the bathroom wall, lurking in the shower curtain. I am waiting for the king to send a herald offering me half the kingdom and the prince's hand in marriage. I'll have to tell him I'm already married, but I expect a savvy financial guy could translate half the kingdom into our next college tuition payment.
Hail the Mighty MilliCentipede Slayer!
Bathrooms are clearly places full of danger. I once got out of the shower, sans eyeglasses, and saw a large black spider scuttle across the floor. I bravely beat it to smithereens with my slipper, then put my glasses on...to find a large black fuzz from my sock.
But it was good and dead, that fuzz. And I didn't KNOW it was a fuzz when I smote it.
Posted by: Kristin | July 10, 2017 at 07:08 AM
I do not do bugs if I can help it. If I have to kill a bug, I will shriek in order to gain the courage to smite the bug. So if you hear me shrieking in the night, I am probably killing a bug in the bathroom.
I was once told you should always ask your husband to kill bugs for you because it makes him feel manly. I have found that mine is exasperated by my bugging killing incompetence.
Posted by: Jenny | July 10, 2017 at 10:46 AM
If the legs looked like lots of wispy hair-like legs it was a house centipede. I never saw those until I moved to Morgantown. I may hate them more than silverfish.
Millipedes don't scare me but I've also never seen them in the shower. They might scare me then.
Posted by: Angela | July 10, 2017 at 03:31 PM
Any bug in the shower is 10 times scarier than its dry-land counterpart.
Posted by: Kristin | July 11, 2017 at 08:47 AM