Musings of a Cynical Optimist

ACK!!!!

Remember how I told you there are centipedes on Maui? I had not seen one since.

Until Friday night. ACK! I killed my first centipede. Because it was IN MY HOUSE!

My sweetie and I had just watched a movie. He came over to the couch to give me a hug. He was kneeling on the ground, and then I looked up, and there........scuttling all the way across our living room floor from the hallway.....was a monstrous centipede. It was running full tilt across the floor, it was fast, and it was BIG (honey said eight inches, but it may have been six).

I screamed bloody murder, pulled my feet off the floor, and stood on top of the couch. I honestly could not tell you what my sweetie did - he may have jumped back on top of the recliner. I don't know. I was so concentrated on getting my feet off the floor.

Then, I heard him say very calmly, but very strongly "Get the spray!" He kept an eye on the centipede as it headed towards the couch and one corner of the room. I ran to the kitchen to grab the only spray we had - Raid Ant and Roach spray. I had no idea if it would work on a centipede. The thing was poking around some papers that were on the ground under a table/desk we have in the living room. I sprayed him. He did NOT like that. He took off at a blistering-fast pace towards the corner of the room. He was FAST. I tried to spray him a couple more times as he ran. He could not find refuge in the corner, so he headed back towards the couch. But, as he approached the couch, he started to slow down. He ran up against another stack of papers and just kind of sat there.

I was hopping around trying to figure out what to do with it.

"I think you're supposed to throw a towel on it!" I screamed. "It won't die from spray! We have to throw it in the garbage disposal!"

"Kill it!"

I ran to the kitchen to look for something to throw over the centipede so it wouldn't be able to hide behind the couch. Towel.....no.....I wouldn't be able to keep an eye on it. I reached into our kitchen drawer........and pulled out........Saran Wrap?? Heck, who knows. I didn't know what else to do.

I ran to the living room, pulling sheets of Saran Wrap out of the box. I threw them at my Sweetie. "Throw that on him!!!" I screamed. He looked at me like my brain had just short-circuited, but I had been yelling about how "I read this!" and "I read that!" so maybe he figured some centipede expert advised throwing Saran Wrap on stunned centipedes. (I was bluffing)

But he threw two pieces of Saran Wrap on the monster, and it was pretty much trapped. It wriggled and squiggled and tried to get away, but I think it was still too stunned from the spray to do too much. My sweetie kept poking at it, and it would wriggle, and I would scream "STOP POKING IT!!!!" I was thinking it would escape from the cocoon of Saran Wrap and promptly bite the hand that was poking at it.

I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed a used Ziploc bag. Sweetie picked up the wrapped centipede from the ground, and we threw it into the bag. He said "I'll throw it away outside." And I said "No! I want to take a picture of it!" Which I proceeded to do for about 20 minutes. I wanted to get a good shot to show how big this thing was, but I was too scared to ever take it out of the bag. So, here are some really fuzzy shots of our almost-dead centipede.