My Life's Mission; or, Another Post about Bugs

This is my post where I chronicle my ongoing battle with house centipedes.

Mind you, this is not a battle I've chosen; rather, it is a destiny chosen for me, as I do not fear bugs.

At one point, I had a cat named The Bum. He used to capture house centipedes and pull their legs off, watching them squirm around. It was sort of "Reservoir Dogs" of him, I thought. One day, when I wasn't home, a particularly large house centipede ran across the living room floor, totally skeeving out my roommate, Amy. According to Amy, The Bum pounced on it and gobbled up the house centipede in one gulp. I think she was equally impressed and grossed out by The Bum. However, he was The Brave Slayer of House Centipedes until he passed away four years ago.

The Bum thought House Centipedes were delicious.

This past summer, I moved a dishcloth out of the kitchen sink. A house centipede crawled out from underneath the dishcloth. My child took one look and ran screaming from the room. My husband backed away nervously and said, "I'll let you take care of this."

So, I squished it and threw it out.

Once in awhile, house centipedes make an appearance in the library. Last year, a student ran out of the bathroom to tell me about a "large, prehistoric bug" that was on the wall. I ended up going into the bathroom, knocking the house centipede off the wall and flushing it down the toilet. There was applause from the group of students who had gathered to watch me battle the house centipede.

I believe that I was chosen by some greater power to keep sanity in a world that can potentially be taken over by these beasts. I will take up the charge and keep my people safe.

"I challenge you!"

The Cockroach of The County

American cockroach. Photo from Wikipedia--not of actual roach at polling place.

After a meeting last night, my son and I stopped at our polling place to vote. Rather, I stopped to vote and my son had to go with me because he is eight.

When we walked into the School 42 gym (the place where we vote), the election inspectors were in a tizzy. There was a cockroach on the wall. Mind you, this was not just a cockroach. It was freakin' HUGE! This sucker had to be at least three to four inches long and very fat. Of course, my son and I had to walk up to it and look at it because it was so big. I then got my ballot and proceeded to vote.

Meanwhile, the roach caused hysteria.

One of the poll workers jumped up, grabbed her purse and screamed, "Oh, Lordy! It's gonna fly into my purse! I just know it is! And then I'm gonna end up bringing that sucker home!"

I tried to concentrate on my ballot. At one point, I turned around to watch the action. One of the election inspectors had the school janitor hitting the roach with a broom. "Oh, Lordy! He's going free! He's going free!," the poll worker screamed.

The janitor hit the cockroach behind some mats by the stage in the gym. The election inspectors gathered by the mats, watching, what I assumed, was the roach's demise. I say "assumed" because we didn't stick around to see what happened.

Of course, on the way home, my head was itchy because I kept thinking about the roach and became paranoid that it was crawling on me. I was totally skeeved out.

As on every Election Day, my husband stayed up late to watch the returns. I didn't stay up. I was sure of the verdict: the Giant Cockroach of 42 School was going to win ALL the elections--mayor, sheriff, judge, school board, etc. Otherwise, why would it be trying to sway the vote on Election Day?

Afterword: If the roach was indeed trying to sway the vote, it would have been doing something illegal. One cannot campaign within a certain distance of a polling place.