Centipedes.

Centipedes.

Why, you might ask, am I writing a blog about centipedes, when it is supposed to be a blog about things that I like? Well, because it's my blog and I can write whatever the hell I want.

Centipedes.

I am going to base this blog purely off of my own knowledge of the species, because I am too scared to Google the beast and see the images that pop up. To anyone who has ever googled any type of STD or fungal infection, this ignites equivalent cringes. I typically keep safe-search set to "OFF" because I like to live on the edge, and look at naked people.

Centipedes.

Most hideous creature, ever.

Centipedes.

My hate/loathe relationship with the fuckers started when I was just a young girl living in the Prairies. (Which is ironic, because my childhood centipede interactions actually allowed me to master the art of prairie doggin'.) Three of the creatures emerged from the gates of hell and turned up in the computer room* of our house, making my worst nightmare, a horrible, sickening reality.

My parents had left the house for their usual Saturday night date (this consisted of a movie and dinner, or more often, just smoking in the garage with the windows up), when my brother, my arch nemesis at the time, decided to chase me down the stairs with the animals in hand.

I locked myself in the bathroom, only to see the centi-legged cretins slither their way under the door to eat me alive. Yes, they had taken bath salts and were going to eat my face. On the exit ramp to Whitemud Drive. Southbound.

Standing on the toilet, I leaned forward, opened the door, and leaped out of the bathroom using all of my elementary school long-jump might. Into the hallway I went, and straight out the front door.

Straight out the front door, in the dead of winter (it was probably May) into the snow, with bare feet, in my Star Trek jammies.

In retrospect, I should hate my brother, (in retro-retrospect, I can't believe I had Star Trek pajamas and didn't turn out to be a gamer. That sucks.) and deep down I do and always will, but when he used to chase me with his farts trapped in film cannisters, I got over it. I'm not perpetually fearful of film cannisters (also because when was the last time you saw a film cannister?), but I am of centipedes, so what gives?

My life, beyond that point, was relatively centipede-free. I frolicked through young adulthood in a pede-less field of dreams with not a worry on my mind. Plus, I had other things to deal with, like taking pictures of Ryan Gosling on the television on Breaker High, gossiping and finding out if God really was there for Margaret.

Centipedes.

They reemerged into my life, recently, since my move out east. I've realized that Torontonians aren't assholes, they're just tough because they've grown up with centipedes. Natural born killers. The BF, who get's double props for growing up in Israel where there are a host of other pests trying to take their land, can kill those mofos like a ninja. They have no chance.

Me?

In my last residence, I slept with my cowboy boots next to my bed and a bottle of super hold hairspray on my night table.

I would shoot first, to slow them down, then stomp, then drag.

Logic: If I reached for them with a kleenex, they would leap onto my face and climb into my eyes, obviously.

My next plan was to secure the perimeter, so I sprinkled Borax around the baseboards of my apartment, and put tissue paper around my bed so that the crinkling of the perps would wake me up. It worked, once, and on the boots went, and they were made for more than just walking. They were death machines.

I still have run-ins with centipedes on a somewhat regular basis, but like I mentioned earlier, I have a protector who battles with them like a scene out of 300 (I make him do it topless, with canola oil slathered on his body, to make it more dramatic and keep things exciting). They keep me on my toes, or off them, since when I see them, I usually end up levitating somehow, but at the end of the day, I have to be grateful to live in a house, and have shelter, and blah blah blah, it could be worse, blah.

CENTIPEDES: If you are reading this, I hate you. Leave me alone. I know that you are sort of good because you kill other nasty ass things, but you are so NASTY. You have legs growing out of your legs. You are too fast.You jiggle even after I've sprayed you with insect killer. You have too many babies. You pain me.

*Back in the early '90s, the fact that you had a computer in a room, warranted the room to be called the 'computer room'. Before that, it was called the 'games room' because it housed a lot of dusty games that nobody in my family ever played with. Before that, it was called the panic room because of the two secret rooms within the room that were camouflaged by the wood panelling. My mother continued to call it the panic room until we got new carpets put in. Also, there are scary faces in the grains of the wood panelling of that room, so I am scared to be in there alone- thanks a lot, Unsolved Mysteries.