What is THAT doing in here?


And why must I always be the one to deal with these things?

I was on the computer one afternoon a couple of weeks ago when Daughter, watching telly in the family room, shrieked then yelled, "Mom, you gotta come see this!"

I thought there was something on TV she wanted me to see. Alas, no, I was required in my guise of Super-Mom, Disposer of Teh Creepy-Crawly and Buzzy. Daughter pointed over to the hearth and said, "There, on the floor by the fireplace. It moves fast."

Well, it wasn't moving at all when I got there, and because I am presbyopic in my old age, it looked from five feet up like nothing so much as a small piece of bark from firewood. So I got my cheaters and eyeballed it again. It had legs. Lots of 'em. Delightful. (/sarcasm) Well, there'd be no scoop-and-toss-out-the-door procedure with this one. (Yes, I do occasionally, when I can get one to cooperate.) And since it was rather hard-bodied looking, and sitting on the wall-to-wall carpeting, a quick smack of my sandal might not do anything except press it into the carpet, after which it might scurry off somewhere where 1) I couldn't get to it and 2) it would send Daughter climbing the furniture shrieking again. Please, no more with the shrieking.

This was a squish-it-with-the-fingers-to-make-sure operation. Happy happy joy joy. (/Ren and Stimpy) (/more sarcasm) Since it was rather hard-bodied looking, I opted for a paper towel folded over several times. I reached down so equiped and grabbed the thing, but obviously not hard enough because it tried to slip free. It was really fast. Well, that was almost enough to make me shriek, but I am made of sterner stuff. *strikes tuff-guy-hero pose w/ hands on hips* So I squished down hard on it until I heard the crunch and a couple of legs popped off. Eww. But ya gotta make sure.

A body-less leg loose on the paper towel continued wiggling. While completely unattached to anything.

EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW.

I took it to the outdoors garbage can. The part of my brain that's seen too many horror flicks could just imagine the loose legs climbing out of the kitchen trash and wiggling their unattached way across the floor.

Teh Intarwebs tell me it's just a common House Centipede, but it was a lot darker brown than any pix I could find:


Posted: Fri - August 14, 2009 at 09:58 PM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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