The Episode of the Millipede

I had cleaned the bedroom yesterday and I left a pile of detritus on the table. The pile included the fly swatter, hidden away.

That night, I was eating a second or third dinner. Phil and Isaiah suddenly saw a millipede emerge from under the light fixture on the bedroom ceiling. They couldn't find the fly swatter. Bummer.

When I came back, Isaiah told me about the horror. "I don't think I'm going to sleep very well tonight. What if it comes out?"

A bit later: "Mom! It's emerging!" But when I shined my headlamp up, "If you do that, it will go back under the light! It freaks out when it sees the light."

So I went to find the flyswatter while the millipede started to scoot back. I steeled my nerves and whacked that bug!

It had a full-sized mattress to fall on. Unfortunately, it fell in the one worst possible place: the small area of sheets right next to sleeping Joe's gaping sleeve. It headed right up Joe's shirt!

Now I know that there are poisonous centipede/millipede bugs somewhere in the world. I was pretty sure that I would have heard about killer centipedes (I mean, I know about black widows and brown recluses, but not deathly centipedes); nonetheless, the idea that any multi-legged bug might be crawling around my son's shirt: ugh.

I pulled Joe up and grabbed that bug. Happily, Joe sleeps heavily. In that split second it started to pinch my finger, so I threw the bug across the room, and it landed in an open book. Should I smoosh it?

Then Isaiah yelled, "It's getting away!" There it headed under the dresser.

Whack, whack, whack. Finally it died.

"I still don't think I'm going to sleep well tonight," said Isaiah. "How did that thing get inside?!"