Last night the most disgusting bug on the face of the planet found his way into my house. Ugh. I am still cringing and squirming just thinking about it. Blegh. Ugh. AWFUL.
I was sitting on my couch, checking my email, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A bug. But not just any bug---the hugest, grossest, scariest centipede in the world---running across my living room floor toward one of my bookshelves. It was like he'd been hiding and was suddenly making a break for it, hoping I wouldn't see him before he reached the cover of another piece of furniture.
His size, his sheer number of legs---both completely disturbing---were nowhere near as shocking as his SPEED.
I came unglued.
I absolutely freaked out.
And when I say, freaked out---I mean, FREAKED. OUT.
Blegh! Ugh. So awful!
I didn't know what to do. I knew I couldn't avoid the fact that I was going to have to kill it. This thing could not be ignored and left to creep around my house and potentially into my bed and across my face in the middle of the night. No way. He had to die.
But I couldn't even bring myself to go near where I had seen him disappear under the bookshelf. In a panic, I thought about calling my landlord (my apartment is attached to his house). But I realized that was ridiculous. I can't call my landlord to come kill a bug for me at 11:00 at night. Oh man. There was no way out of it. I was gonna have to do this myself.
I grabbed the thickest, heaviest book I could find (Great Expectations), and started the hunt.
I tiptoed around cautiously, anticipating him darting out and showing his nastiness again at any second. I didn't know if I could handle even seeing this thing again, much less killing it.
UGH.
But I couldn't find him. I looked everywhere. Frustrated. Where the heck can something that big hide?
Partly relieved by not having to face him, but mostly afraid of the possibility that he had made it into my bed, I screwed up my courage and shook out the covers.
Nothin'.
I knew I'd never be able to sleep without this thing dead and flushed down my toilet, so I decided to kill time by taking a bath. I went into the bathroom to draw the bath, bringing Great Expectations in with me---just in case. And, sure enough, as I pulled back the shower curtain and reached in to turn on the water, something on the inside curtain caught my eye.
UGH!
I jumped back and grabbed my book. He sensed his danger and started to run. Before I could blink, he had scooted down the inside of the shower curtain and up the front side of it, where he stopped. For a split second I debated whether to knock him off the curtain and onto the floor---I didn't want to squash him on my pretty new shower curtain---but with his speed, I couldn't risk him escaping. I had no choice. I went for it.
He died with a splat I still shudder to recall, between Charles Dickens and the wall of my tub, leaving a lovely stain on my shower curtain to remember him by.
So nasty.
Today I googled "scary centipede" and it turns out my victim was a house centipede (as if he somehow belonged in my house)---a name which in no way does him justice. His scientific name---Scutigera coleoptrata---suits him better. According to Wikipedia, these things have "15 pairs of remarkably long legs, enabling them to reach surprising speeds of up to 406 mm (16.0 in) per second." They have teeth, and they bite.
SICK.
