The Most Awful Awfulness May 5, 2011
Posted by EDW in Life, Marriage.Tags: brown recluse, bugs, bugs on your face, centipedes, infestation, maggots, Marriage
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At our house, there is an unspoken policy of tolerance towards all creatures. Wasps, moths, and beetles, when discovered, are scooped into a cup and charitably relocated out-of-doors. Spiders are generally allowed to cohabitate with us, because they eat pesky mosquitoes and gnats. But apparently word is out among the bug community: we’re suckers. And now our house is under siege by creatures that even my pacifistic and nature-loving heart cannot abide.
Yesterday I found a plastic bag of maggoty potatoes under my sink. When I lifted the sack to put it into the wastebasket, there was a slick of thick, yellow fluid underneath it. I’m not sure what it says about me as a person that for weeks (months?) this kind of nastiness has been going on under my very nose, unabrogated. At least I determined the source for all the little kamikaze flies I keep finding in my wine. So that’s one problem solved.
"I want to eat your face. Nom nom nom nom."
But what to do about the brown recluses and the sinister centipedes? They’ve invaded my house as well, and there’s no tell-tale stench to indicate where their headquarters might be. Sly little beasties, those arthropods. Last weekend, my husband woke me up in the middle of the night by flinging off the covers and shouting, “SOMETHING’S CRAWLING ON ME!” I, sleepy and slow to react, watched with faint interest as he staggered to the bathroom and turned on the light. Here’s how it went down:
HIM (peering into the mirror): Holeeee. Shit.
ME: What?
HIM: I have a centipede on my face.
It was true. There was a hideous brown centipede about three inches long resting just above his left eyebrow and curling down beside his eye. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen in my life, hands-down. To his credit, my husband was remarkably calm–I was the one freaking out, flinging open cabinets and drawers, frantically trying to find something with which I might swiftly and unprovocatively dispatch the centipede without also giving my husband a black eye. I settled on a make-up brush, which I used to whisk the centipede from his face. The centipede flew across the bathroom and disappeared back into the void from whence it came. We tore the bathroom apart looking for it, but it was just…gone.
ME: We have to find it. We have to.
HIM: It went into a crevasse.
ME: No.
HIM: Let’s go back to bed.
ME: Do you understand that if we don’t find that centipede, I will never be able to use this bathroom again? You’ll have to brick up the doorway. If immurement is our only option for extermination, so be it.
Naturally, I couldn’t sleep for hours. Any time my hair so much as fluttered against my cheek, or the bedsheet settled against my skin, I freaked. My husband wound up having to console me, even though the centipede had been clinging to his face–with all one hundred of its jabby, pointy, horrible little feet. Several mornings later, I was sitting in bed, lazily explaining something, when I could tell from the shift in my husband’s facial expression (bleary to alarmed), that something godawful was going on behind me and near my ass. He grabbed my wrist and yanked me to safety–and not a moment too soon, for there was a large brown recluse scurrying among the blankets, apparently ready to brunch on my bottom. This time, my husband was the one to manfully dispatch the creature, by crushing it in a fistful of toilet paper.
ME: Ohmygod. It was totally about to bite me on the ass cheek. Right? It was going to bite me on the ass cheek, wasn’t it? and then I’d have to go to the doctor. And get surgery. On my ass cheek.
HIM: Do you think they sell mosquito nets here in the U.S.? We need to install one around our bed.
ME: My ass cheek!
HIM: Put some pants on.
And that, people, is why I stay married.
A scorpion bit me on my nose. The tip of the nose in between the nostrils is where his tail whipped around and plunged its stinger. What the heck is that piece of flesh called. The thin strip of flesh which divides your nostrils? This is most holy ground. I was traumatized for months. See, I sleep with a pillow over my head and apparently the scorpion was on the pillow and BAM! I was popped. Fortunately, the skin there is mostly cartilage and the venom didn’t have any place to go. Still OMG, a greasy, dirty scorpion was on my face! Disgusting. Thanks for letting me share. still get the creeps. nighty night…
Aaaah, now you have successfully traumatized me!
I cannot stand centipedes – there’s a spot on our property where I once saw a 5-6″ one, and I haven’t been able to hang out there since. Like five years ago. Anyway. We used to be kind to the spiders in our house, but there’s been a crackdown in the past couple of years. Spider bites swell, get red, itch like h***, and don’t leave for days. We’ve seen brown recluses (reclusi?) in our house and blame them for the bites, but all spider breeds have suffered because of the epidemic. 
@ Mo: Ugh. That’s horrifying. Scorpions are right up there with centipedes and brown recluses on my list of “Most Vile Beasties to Ever Scuttle Through the Bedclothes.” I had one get in bed with me once, too. You know where it stung me? That’s right. On my ass cheek.
@ Melody: I know–centipedes are so creepy, right? My husband said that when he got up out of bed, he felt it CLUTCH onto his face with all its little feet. FYI: I’d always heard that centipedes could sting with their feet, but this is not true according to the Internet, and personal experience. Perhaps the stinging their feet do is delivered psychically?
milly, ha ha.. you had better start protecting those little cheeks of yours.
Our house has been riddled by brown recluses. We heard a cat was the remedy, so we got two of them. That’s not the remedy. If ever the time comes when we eliminate clutter in our house (and find other homes for the cats), I’m for keeping one of our pet tarantulas loose inside. Now SHE would get rid of any creature smaller than her. I’m serious. But with all the clutter, I’m afraid we’d accidentally hurt the tarantula. See my post at http://oldelephantwings.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-care-for-your-pet-tarantula.html.
Love your posts! I got the willies reading this one.
Surgery on the ass cheek (lol) …funny. I usually like bugs as well, although after the ‘tick event’ in the summer of 97′ I’m a little less hospitable.
Was browsing your old journal and blogs, over at the place where I first met you and Q… years back. I inderstand you and Q are in contact again. I recently asked Q to pass my regards on to you and he said he would do so. It’s good to read your beautiful narrative here, and knowing that this is a recent post. I can see you are doing just fine… long time since the “Waitron” days… and you are happy. It was and always will be a warm and happy memory knowing Gris Gris Girl and EW, back then. I still blog there and a prime clue can be found in a Star Trek name. Warmest wishes, always! Emily.