Rubber Duckie, You're the One!

Baby animals are cute. Even the least dog-friendly person has a hard time resisting the innocent, brown-eyed stare from a fluffy-faced golden retriever pup, right? And, although I myself am allergic to cats, I can't help but cuddle and tease my friends' six-week-old kitty Leo. Can't say no to that bitty face!

Baby insects, however, are not cute. Baby spiders, baby flies, and - you guessed it - baby centipedes are not at all cute. They still have the same buzzing wings or creepy legs that I despise in the adult versions, so they don't win any points in my book.

Why have I returned to my centi-rant, you wonder? Well, about a month or so ago, my Dad's best friend Lee began (much-needed!) work on our bathroom. Ross had been toying with the idea for years, but when parts of the wall began to, quite literally, fall into the tub as I showered, it was time to move to action. We picked out a new tub and tile, and Lee and Ross discussed how feasible parts of the project would be. It could be done in a few weeks! At least, phase one could be. The remainder of the project - painting, new shelves and a new vanity - would have to wait until probably next year. "That's fine," I exclaimed. Until I realized that, during the renovation, I would have to shower downstairs.

For those of you who have visited the house, you know that there are a lot of cool things here. There is beautiful woodwork, a spacious dining room, several decent-sized bedrooms...and a freaky, bug-filled cellar. Maybe my animosity goes all the way back to my childhood, when the house in which I grew up also had a scary, downstairs shower. In the case of that house, it was right near the basement door. Bugs flew in all the time. Wasps had created an evil, haunting nest right outside, on the deck, and they flew in the the house as though it was their right. I took showers down there when I had to, but never at night, and never for more time than was absolutely necessary.

However, Ross and I, I have to admit, made pretty light work of the temporary shower. He has, naturally, a Pittsburgh Potty in the basement, concealed only by a cheap blue shower curtain. We simply added a few more curtains to turn that corner of the room into a mini-bathroom, complete with a few hooks for hanging soap and bath sponges - and the garden hose that was to be the shower head. At least it offered several delightful settings: 'trickle', 'trickle left', 'trickle right', 'leak awkwardly', 'douse', and 'assault'.

In all honestly, once I got back into the college-born habit of wearing my flip-flops into the shower, things weren't so bad. Well, maybe not in the shower itself. Unfortunately, Lee's hard work must have upset the centipede population that had gone into summer dormancy in the pipes. Since the weather had grown very hot, we hadn't seen them for some time. Other bugs, sure (spiders in particular love the office on the second floor), but centipedes only thrive in most, temperate conditions. We must have rattled them. Because they were back, in full force.

With their babies.

The first one I saw was in the kitchen, and I was startled, but more frustrated than anything else. I knew he was a herald, sent by the evil Centipede Queen to let me know that more were coming. Ross killed him with a shoe, hoping to send a message back to their Underground Kingdom.

The next one I saw was in the upstairs bathroom. Lee's fussing with the pipes had made the bug bold. But, as he was only a juvenile bug, I had to show him a lesson in pride. I removed my flip-flip and smeared him against the wall. I chose not to remove his remains. Again - I had to send a message. Also, it was gross.

The remaining bugs must have heard our message clearly, because, after that, they stayed down in the basement. As they grew more cautious, I grew more evil. Instead of being startled, afraid or angry when I saw one - even a little one - I paused, stayed perfectly still, and silently considered every possible way of destroying it. Should I use the traditional but effective Shoe-Smack? Guts on the floor? Perhaps a can of hairspray to crisp up the legs before Ross's grill lighter takes over? Char-i-pedes. Maybe drowning in the laundry tubs? My friend, you may have 30 legs but I doubt you can swim.

I pretty much stuck with the shoe, though.

After long, hard days of battle, I do admit it was pretty nice to be able crawl, war-weary, into the bathtub, complete with its Rubber Duckie curtain and bath mat, dump in half a bottle of bubble bath, and soak until even my toes pruned up.

It was my first bath since I married Ross, and it was darn well time for it.

Attack of the Centipedes! (Part Three)

Be warned.

My flip-flops are smeared with the legs and guts of your slain brethren.  I keep a record of your dead allies.  I am an insect terrorist.  I will destroy you and all you know. 

Also, I am hiring an exterminator.

Your days are numbered, fools.

Attack of the Centipedes! (Part Two)

We were cuddled up in bed.  I was nearly asleep, the day's events slipping into memory, and my arms wrapped lovingly around my husband.  Then he spoke.

"Honey?  Can I tell you something you don't want to hear?"

Honestly, who wakes their wife up to say something like that?  I was suddenly fully awake, preparing to hear about an outlandishly expensive car he wanted to buy or a job that would require us moving to Idaho.  "What, baby?"

"...when I was downstairs today..."

Only two things happen in the basement: laundry gets done, and centipides roam freely like wild mustangs on the plains of the American midwest.  Vaguely, I hoped he was going to tell me a story about how he shrunk his new Gap khakis.

"I was cleaning the drain...and one of them came up out of it."

I shuddered.

"So I hurried upstairs to get a shoe to smash it with, and I figured it would have been gone by the time I came back."

I shuddered again.

"Um, but it was still there.  It just kept running around in a little circle.  It wasn't trying to hide or anything.  Just running around in a circle.  So I killed it."

I relaxed.

"And then, another one came up out of the drain."

I shuddered again.  This had the makings of a horror movie, but I didn't want it to be happening in my house.

"It was a teeny one, just a baby.  I guess he was looking for big brother.  So I killed it."

"...oh..."

"And then, Momma came up, looking for her kids.  So I killed her, too.  Three of them  I killed them all.  Do you want me to clean the drain again tomorrow and see if I can get any more?"

"No, it's ok."  Good God, Ross, it's not like they're ten-point bucks.  You don't get a point for every freaking leg you smash!

He paused for a second.  "It was strange.  That first one was weird.  I mean, they're supposed to like the dark.  They always run and hide when we turn on the lights, right?"

Was I really discussing insect duck-and-cover tecniques with my husband at midnight?  "I guess so.  The ones we've seen usually do."

"This one was messed up, I think.  He just kept running in that circle, like he was panicking."

"Maybe he was hatched with half his legs shorter than the other half.  Maybe that's how he always moved."

Oddly, the thought of a centipede with a birth defect struck us as so ridiculously hysterical that my anxiety disappeared, and I didn't have nightmares about giant bugs that evening.

Last night, around eleven, I went downstairs to get a glass of water from the kitchen.  I flicked on the light and there was one of those monsters, sitting just to the left of the table.  Despite my grogginess, I took exactly one-millionth of a second to identify it.  I don't know that I've ever screamed so loud in my life.  While I was screaming, I was actually consciously wondering why Ross had not flown to my side, shoe in hand, ready to strike down the offending beast.  During the breath I took between screams, I heard him call, "Honey, what's wrong?" but I kept screaming.  Then, as he came downstairs, I burst into tears and I blubbered, "I saw one, I saw one!"  I ran out of the kitchen and hid on the stairwell.  "Honey, take a deep breath," he soothed, "I'll get it."

After a few minutes, I didn't hear the tell-tale thwack of his sandal on the linoleum, so I put on my shoes and tiptoed into the kitchen.  "Where is it?" I whimpered, forcing myself to grab his flashlight and illuminate the dark, crumb-infested corners of the room.  "I can't find it," he said, at the moment my beam of light hit the motionless bug.  "It's another one," I gasped.  Surely that small, quivering thing wasn't the leviathan that had just startled me.  Was it?

"It's the same one," I admitted lamely.  "It's kind of little, I guess."

We yanked the kitchen table out of the way and crept towards it.  It remained perfectly still.  I was surprised.  Those things are super-attuned to vibrations, and, like most "feeler bugs", skitter out of the way when they sense an approach.  But this one was...playing dead?

Ross and I looked at each other and prepared to lunge when the thing make a break for it.  But it never moved.  Finally, frustrated, I shoved the chair it was hiding under.  It twitched lightly, and ambled over to a crumb that was lying near the radiator.  It ambled.  Have you ever seen anything with more than eight legs amble?  It did.  It was as casual as though it were mingling at a cocktail party.

"Is it...eating a Cheerio?" Ross asked.

"Yeah, you eat that.  It's good for your heart, you little freak," I narrated like a crook in a crummy crime novel.  Ross dealt the maiming blow with his shoe, and removed two sets of the centipede's legs.  I smashed the flailing half and I do not lie when I say that I could actually feel it under my flip flop.

There was a moment of silence.

"Did it try to eat the Cheerio?" Ross repeated.

"It's time for bed, honey."

During our study of centipedes in their "natural" habitat, we've learned the following things:

    1. They can survive an eight-foot fall with nothing more than mild disorientation.

    2. Like other wild animals, they are capable of being protective of their young, but their young are idiots.

    3. They can be demobilized by petrified female screams.

    4. Following the current health-food trend, they are making wiser choices involving low-sugar, high-fiber cereals.

I guess we'll arm ourselves with heavy boots and Cheerios from here on out.

Attack of the Centipedes!

It had been an otherwise pleasant day.  We'd accomplished a good deal of housework and run several errands, and we were both ready to turn in for the night.  I was tidying up the den when I heard him muttering about a "little bugger", then I heard him snarl, "stay still!"  Seeing as how we have no pets and Ross is not one to talk to himself in such unkind language, I immediately assumed the worst.  I called across the hallway and asked my husband what was wrong.

"Uh...nothing honey," came the less-than-confident reply.  "Just...stay in the other room."

My heart sank.  I had a feeling he'd discovered something in the bathroom that had more than two legs.  Despite his protests, I peered into the bathtub.  There it was, the first house centipede of the season, hurtling its little multi-legged way out of the drain in the bathtub.  

"Really?  Already?" I sobbed as he smashed the thing.  It was only a baby - if such a tender term can be used when referring to a juvenile creepy-crawly - but that meant that there were probably others.  Last year, they were everywhere, it seemed.  Several accosted me while I was doing laundry, and now I never go into the basement without shoes on. One was hiding in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner and the bold, stupid thing had the audacity to rush me while I was at the stove.  One even - quite literally - fell headlong from a damaged ceiling tile over the sink while Ross was washing the dishes.  We nicknamed it The Paratrooper and promptly dispatched it.  After I screamed bloody murder, of course.  Now, I rarely curse.  I very rarely use foul language.  But when I see one of these awful things, I find it really, really hard to bite my tongue.  I find myself cursing them, calling them names, shouting absurd epithets and threats at them.  I find myself subconsciously checking each room for their presence, as well as for the presence of anything that can possibly be used as a weapon: a broom, a can of hairspray, a skillet.

It's not that they're particularly dangerous.  In fact, house centipedes are probably among those "pests" that actually eat other, more annoying (but less scary) pests like ants or aphids or something like that.  But who cares how "helpful" the things are?  They're HORRIFYING to look at.  They're not particularly huge bugs, but their eight million long, slender legs make them look much bigger than they really are.  And, of course, having eight million legs, those suckers move FAST.  They move so quickly, and their legs make them look so large, that I've mistaken them for mice on occasion.  

I'd rather have a mouse living in the house.  I'd welcome a mouse.  Do mice eat centipedes?  That would be even better.

The only perk I can see in all of this is that I'm no longer afraid of spiders.  How can eight legs freak me out more than thirty?