Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You

[the_other_sandy]

Anybody who knows me knows just how very much I hate bugs. For the last year or so, I've had three house centipedes patrolling my apartment. I think they're hideous, but they eat spiders, so I put up with the house centipedes because I hate spiders more. About once a month, I find a house centipede on my bedroom ceiling and feel compelled to sleep on the couch. I feel really stupid, but I have this fear that one of them will trip over one of its entirely too many legs and land on my face at 3:00 a.m. It turns out that my paranoia was not misplaced.

Yesterday, I was in the bathroom doing what one commonly does in the bathroom, when a house centipede I didn't even know was there fell off the ceiling right in front of my face and landed between my feet, where it proceeded to run around in many directions at a high rate of speed in its panic. I let out a shriek that I'm surprised didn't have the neighbors calling the police. Brave soul that I am, I spent the rest of the day terrified to go to the bathroom for fear that it would start raining house centipedes again. ::blushes::

I will never second guess myself about spending the night on the couch again.

Comments

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I hate spiders more than anything. When I was a kid, we used to get these big wolf spiders at our house. I will never forget the night my mom tried to pull one off the wall with a Kleenex and couldn't do it. The first try with the vacuum didn't get it off the wall either. ::shudders::

[lunarennui.livejournal.com]

where i grew up they had crab spiders, which are EXTREMELY aggressive. they don't bother with webs, they just hunt down their prey. and they will and do attack and bite humans, and damn but those bites sucked. seriously, you could go after one and it would FACE YOU DOWN, making threatening lunges. eep!

between those and the very large cat-faced spiders that liked to build their webs at face-level in walkways...and of course i wasn't going to stop going outside just because it was dusk...and GAH.

ick. spiders. ick ick ick.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Where did you live that had these spiders? Just to make sure, you know, that I never ever move there?

[lunarennui.livejournal.com]

evanston, wyoming. black widows aside, i have never run across such icky and mean spiders as are found in wyoming. like velvet ants. they're not really ants, but they look like ants, covered in a lush red velvet. those ARE poisonous, so if you see a really pretty ant while hanging out in wyoming or utah or idaho or colorado, DON'T TOUCH IT. actually, run. i recommend the running.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I didn't know about this when I was at Girl Scout camp in Ten Sleep, Wyoming.