Anything on my floor that runs faster than I do, and is running toward my foot, is gonna be stomped. Especially anything that looks like a pair of false eyelashes on the loose.
As long as this creature, common name house centipede, which actually is very beneficial (so I've read), stays in the cellar, or outside under leaves and rocks and stuff like that, I have no problem sharing my property with it. But if it insists on running toward me at 6AM, before I can recognize what it is, so that my rational brain can keep my atavistic, vestigial-Neanderthal-brain under control, it will be smooshed into oblivion!
In the second image, you can see the shortened, modified legs that deliver the house centipede's venom, those red-tipped, curved things just behind its head. I read online that it is very rare for the house centipede to sting humans, but that when (when?! What happened to 'very rare'?) they do, the sting is no worse than that of a bee...like that's going to make a difference?!
Okay...so, I'm a coward. I can live with that. I just won't live with these many-legged-creepy-crawly things running toward my feet.
'Nuff said. 
9 comments:
Oh my god that's horrible, I don't blame you for squashing it. Sorry I know that's very speciesist but really...
Perhaps it's the ghost of Liz Taylor's false eyelashes?
HA!
I'll try to think of Liz's 'lashes when I see the next one, Lucy, and just hop out of the way.
Not entirely sure that will work, but I'll try.
I have a periodic bug problem here depending on what the neighbors are up to. I don't like to spray but I have, and the bugs pay no mind. However, I'm sure a coroner one day might have something to say about me and the spray.
The boric acid pills don't help a lot either, not that I can tell.
So what's a poor boy to do?
Put down sticky traps. And I did, much to horror of some. The cruelty! Well, it's my freakin' house. They can find their own somewhere else, and I'll leave them in peace. Just like the snakes.
I hate a snake.
Wow, not usre I've seen one of those around here, but I'm sure I'd react exactly as you did. I'm the resident wolf-spider-stomper around here, don't you know!
That is one ugly bug. Stomp away, I say.
Mike
Floor shrimp.
I understand, I had to kill a perfectly nice spider that found it's way into the OR. Not a tenable place for a wee bugge.
gross gross, gross. i am a total baby around bugs. looking at this one gives me the creepy shivers. out out damn spot!
So a snake's OK, then? But suppose you're bare-footed at the time. Can you still stomp? And then sense what's happened under... no, no. I don't believe you. Occasionally, as Mrs BB and I loll on our respective sofas, watching telly, a spider tentatively makes it into the exposed middle ground of our telly room and almost always proves to be more interesting than what's on the screen. I have a theory that one can corral spiders merely by casting a shadow near them and driving them in the other direction. This seems a good blog to check out whether the technique works.
I love your description of the event. My reaction would have been exactly the same but thankfully, they're not tall enough to press the elevator button.
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