A Creepy Encounter

 May 15

It was around 10:00 pm. I was on the piano minding my own business when all of the sudden I feel something brush up against my right foot. At first I though it was a spider, but when I looked down, I saw that it was definitely not a spider, but instead was a horrible, hideous and HUGE centipede. I've never seen such an enormous insect in all my life--at least not in the house and definitely not in close proximity to me. I was on the other side of the room in no time. I don't even remember how I got there. I freaked out for a few seconds, which I'm sure would have been quite funny for someone else if they were watching. Really though, anyone would freak out...this thing was probably about 7-8 inches long. And it touched me. IT TOUCHED ME. I wasn't too sure what to do, but I sure as heck didn't want that thing loose in the house, so I ran to the kitchen and trapped it (luckily it hadn't gone too far) with my dehydrator lid. I looked for our bug killer but I couldn't find it. I meant to leave it for Erik to take care of in the morning. It actually was a pretty cool bug, had it been outside or somewhere far away from my living space. I made the mistake of having Gabe come down and see it, and he freaked out at just the sight of it. After quieting Gabe down, I went to bed, but couldn't go to sleep because I kept thinking about the fact that the container (lid) that I had trapped the centipede in, had some narrow slits at the top. I had no idea how small of holes centipedes can crawl through, and I couldn't abide by the thought of that thing getting loose in the house. So I devised a plan to rid the house of that thing so I could sleep peacefully. I took a large, flat piece of canvas from my craft room and carefully slid it under the lid, and walked outside and let that thing go on the ground as far away as I was willing to walk in my robe and flip flops. I looked up this centipede and its a "giant desert centipede" and yep, they have venomous, painful bites. Yeesh. I'm wondering if I should have just squished this thing, but I didn't want to deal with cleaning up any of its gooey guts, and they're good for pest control, even if they are one themselves. I'm trying to decide if a scorpion would have been better or worse. I'm thinking worse, because centipedes don't typically invade houses I think (hope) this one getting into the house was just a fluke. If one scorpion is seen, that means that there are 10 more in the house that you're not seeing.  Luckily, I rarely see scorpions, maybe once a year and usually they're dead. I think by now my heebie-jeebies have subsided, but for a while there, anything that touched my body made me jump:

Here it is, trapped under my dehydrator lid

Gabe's reaction to the centipede!

This is all the pests I have found in our house. One of them doesn't quite belong though. Of course this doesn't include flies, mosquitos, crickets, ants, and random other tiny bugs.