Oh! Mother F#####! Kill It! Kill It!

The Japanese call it the "mustache bug." If I met a man (or woman, for that matter) with a mustache that looked like this thing, I'd send them quick! to the waxer.

At this moment, I'm attempting to write about my irrational fears of the house centipede. The scutigera coleoptrata.

The problem is, in trying to download the image above, I've worked myself up into such a panic that I'm surprised my little sweaty fingers are nimble enough to strike the necessary keys.

There's no way to describe my reaction without copious use of the f-bomb, so if that word offends you, (1) I apologize whole-heartedly, (2) rest assured that I never use this word unless cornered and threatened, and (3) #2 might be a lie.

Either way, each time I look to the top right of this screen, I immediately begin laughing, though I find nothing funny at all. It's a different kind of laugh than my snort or deep baby-like giggle. This one squeezes my stomach muscles like an intense sit up, makes my eyes squint shut like I'm about to get hit, and causes me sound out a little breathy, panicky laugh, accented by "mother fucker"s. And then I cry a little. I don't know why. But  they're real tears. Fear tears. It's dumb. Ooooh, mother fucker! I just looked again! Ooooh mother fucker! Oh, my God! Oh, geeeeeeeez. That's horrible.

Nearly every time I roll out some toilet paper, I'm afraid one of these guys is just going to roll his way into view. "Haha!" It would say. "En garde!" Most people told me that this fear was irrational. Those people weren't the ones that had to make an emergency trip to 744 Syracuse Avenue (thank you, Brian Hurtt) in 1996. Brian saw it. That mother fucker was hanging on my toilet paper roll.

My dad made the 5-mile trip from his house to my apartment on Dartmouth to kill one in the kitchen. By the time he got there, I was standing on one of the chrome and red vinyl kitchen dinette chairs, tears streaming down my face, yelling, "Ooooh! Mother fucker! There it is, Dad! Mother fucker! Oooooh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Kill it! Kill it!" My dad, armed with an impressive arsenal of bug spray cans with various images of killer ants and bees on them, opened a can of whoop-ass ala Ghostbusters. My house smelled of toxic chemicals for days and everything I touched in the kitchen had a certain tackiness to it, but that bug was gone.

Have you encountered the house centipede? They're fast as shit. A house centipede does not mill its way across your floor. It moves all time-lapse photography style. It seriously bends time and space to get from one place to another, and it doesn't limit its terrifying fast-speed skittering to the floor. It takes its bad-ass up your wall like that boily-faced gal in the Exorcist remake. Plus, it's all "hahaha! I'm climbing up your wall, dummy!" while its doing it. I believe house centipedes mock me.

I've lived in this particular house since April, and so far, no house centipedes. It's still summer, though. When the air becomes crisp and the smell of barbecue stops infiltrating the neighborhood, these little bad asses will be looking for indoor lodging. Keep your cell phones handy. I may be giving you a call.