I had provided Farmer H's meal. Devoted time to talk to him while he ate. Sent him off to an auction. Then the rest of the evening was mine! I warmed up some chicken. Prepared a tray of my supper, and two limes to put in the remaining 22 oz of my Diet Coke. I reached the bottom of the basement stairs, anticipating my supper and uninterrupted computing. I was practically skipping with glee as I crossed in front of Genius's old desk, on the way to my dark basement lair.
WAIT A MINUTE!
What WAS that? Something on the floor, about three feet from my office. Something dark. In the Gaming Triangle. That's the area I walk through, bordered on the right by a small TV with a Nintendo hooked up. The left side is a desk against the wall outside the NASCAR bathroom, where The Pony liked to sit underneath with a remote and play games. Straight ahead is the wall (and door) of my office.
That wasn't there when I went upstairs to make supper an hour ago! What WAS that? I crept closer, tray of chicken in my right hand, yellow bubba cup full of ice in my left.
YIKES!!!
That was NOT a number 6! Not even a number 9! IT WAS A MILLIPEDE!
I hate millipedes. I really, REALLY hate them! Now I was all alone, with one blocking the entrance to my lair! Darn that Farmer H! He usually doesn't go to Monday auctions. How dare this millipede make its grand entrance after Farmer H had made his exit! I call shenanigans!
You know how it is, when you realize that the only one who can save you is yourself. I skooched as far against that desk as possible, and made it around the millipede. I put down my tray and bubba, and grabbed a paper towel off my desk. I could have used a Puffs Plus Lotion, but I did not want to take a chance of feeling the outline of that critter through the tissue-thin tissue. My fear of going back out there to grab the millipede was only slightly less than my fear that when I returned, it would be GONE! Like Michael Myers in the original Halloween.
It makes me retch to re-live the memory! The millipede was still there. I snatched it up inside the folded (for extra thickness, it was only a Select-A-Size) paper towel. I might have been keening nonsense syllables as I did so. Thank the Gummi Mary, the NASCAR bathroom toilet was only about six feet away. I rushed in and dropped that unwelcome visitor into the bowl with a PLOP! Of course I had to keep the paper towel out of the toilet.
My relief was sadly tempered with the fear that when I sit down on the toilet, that millipede might be lurking below.
3 comments:
I DID recently read a story of a bionic (?) millipede. It was (supposedly) flushed down the toilet. Several months later, it emerged--victorious--and was by that time four inches in diameter and at least 2 feet long.
How had it been living in the sewage system all that time?
What was it eating all that time?
How did it become a creature capable of living under water?
All those questions are still being investigated, along with this one:
Why would Sioux try to torment you further? (I hate millipedes, too.)
I hate millipedes too, but have no problem with sweeping them into a dustpan and tossing them into the garden where they belong. Of course I wouldn't have to climb stairs from my lair to do so, it's a quicker journey for me.
Sioux,
No fair! That gave me chills as I read it. NO! It doesn't help that last night, I found ANOTHER one! I can't even tell the tale right now. The only thing you left out was how the bionic millipede had inexplicably grown A HUMAN FOOT at the end of each of its million legs!
***
River,
As if I have a dustpan handy! I could throw it out the basement door, from the workshop out to Poolio. HOWEVER, I tried to open that door a couple nights ago, to check on a storm, and it was jammed! That's all I'd need, a squirming millipede in hand, and unable to expel it!
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