Scutigera coleoptrata

Not making it to Memphis did provide me with 4 days of uninterrupted time to rest. I didn't realize how tired I was until given the opportunity to sleep. I did a lot of sleeping this weekend and actually feel pretty well rested - something I haven't experienced in a quite a while.

During one of my periods of rest I did however experience a moment so terrifying that it has me quaking just thinking about it.

As I lay watching Star Trek – the original (Captain Kirk was truly the original Mack-you gotta be truly talented (or desperate-they spent a lot of months up on the Enterprise) to be able pull alien punany – I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Knowing that 'the son" was in the other room, I glanced to my left in time to get the shock of my life. Making his way across the floor at a leisurely pace was a Scutigera Coleoptrata, for you laymen that means a Freakin’ Centipede was crawling toward me.

This Centipede was not your normal garden variety either. He must have been under the couch, coming out at night to raid my refrigerator all winter. He was huge (“the son” and I figured at least 3 inches long)! (I know you just scratched somewhere on your body. The very mention of the word Centipede just gets people to shivering and scratching – lookin’ like a bunch of crackheads) I let out a blood-curdling scream and tried desperately to meld into the couch. As many of you have surely experienced, Centipedes move at a fairly speedy pace. They are often hard to kill because by the time you see them they have already made their way to the next hiding place. Well, let me tell you this one was in no hurry. Seriously, he/she/it (EEEWWW) was strutting across the carpet. It was as if, given his/her/it’s (EEEWWW) size, it was saying “Whatcha you gonna do?” I quickly screamed for “the son” to do his manly duties (yes, I went there) and annihilate the intruder! Acting quickly – although even with “the son” entering the room, he/she/it (EEEWWW) did not accelerate its pace – “the son” grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on, his guitar amp, and dropped it. Once the amp was moved, “the son” got a shoe and just to make sure that it was good and dead and proceeded to stomp it into the carpet.

So all weekend, I was seeing phantom centipedes in my peripheral. (EEEWWW) Stop scratching!

In honor of my experience, here is the theme song for my intruder…
(If yall don’t remember this, then you were truly only a spectator during the 80’s and not a real participant!)


Centipede, Rebbie Jackson 1984
(for you chumps that don’t know Rebbie Jackson, the oldest Jackson had quite a few chart topping hits in the 80’s.)