What Keeps You Up At Night?

It used to be simple things that kept me up at night, like being too cold, a stiff neck, the sounds of my heating pipes....well not any longer. It's now the fear of death that keeps me awake. Tonight I found a disgusting creepy bug less than a foot away from my bed on the wall!! I feel so uncomfortable in my own apartment. I frantically look at the walls and floors all the time now. Apparently its a harmless House Centipede, but I don't care. It is so gross and creepy. I thought winter was supposed to kill bugs, apparently it just lures them all inside so they don't freeze to death.
(This picture doesn't do justice on the scale. The body was over an inch long and the hairlike legs made it look HUGE--3 inches long at least!)

Naturally, I saw the bug and flipped out. I was supposed to be leaving in 20 minutes for a womens' dessert night with church, but I knew there was no way I was leaving the apartment without that sucker being removed. If left it until later to be dealt with, it would undoubtedly be gone when I got home and I would spend the next 3 weeks panicked about which shoe it was in or where in my bed it was hiding. So, what did I do but immediately walk out the door to my neighbor, Mike's. Mike is the heat guy--he's used to me stopping by on an every other day basis. Well, tonight Mike was not home. I don't know why he feels the liberty to go to class and have a life outside of being my heat monitor, but he does. Well, I don't know my downstairs neighbor (Andy) very well, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I marched right down and said, "Can you kill a bug in my apartment?" He said sure and began looking for something to kill it will. He struggled to find something so I quickly volunteered the junk mail in our hallway for all of the previous tenants from what seems like the past 2o years.

Now you may think that beggars can't be choosers, oh, but I was picky. I made sure to let him know that a missed attempt would not be okay and that he needed to be confident that he could get him on the first try. (Who was I kidding? I wasn't going to do any better of a job than he could. In fact, I didn't even have the guts to try. I was terrified. He was all I had). I wasn't sure if that creepy bug was fast or if it could fly. He assured me that it was a Silverfish and he had seen one in his apartment downstairs earlier this week. Great. We have an infestation. Well he creamed that little guy with two swift blows and I thanked him. I didn't even require that he clean the guts off the wall. I was certain that I could handle that, but later found out that even with rubber gloves on I was so freaked out by this foreign bug that I had to psyche myself up just to clean the guts off. Anyway, about 10 minutes later I heard Mike come home and wanted to let him know that I would appreciate a little heat and to let him know that our apartment building is being taken over by alien bugs.

To my surprise Andy was sitting in there with Mike and said, "I already told him about the Silverfish." And Mike said, "I just turned the heat on."

Playing it cool I said, "Oh ok, I was just checking on the heat. Also, I looked it up and it's not a Silverfish, but a House Centipede." They didn't believe me so they wanted to see proof on my google image search (I took a picture but it turned out blurry. I was really nervous the flash was going to scare the bug, but apparently they aren't camera shy. He didn't even flinch). We agreed that it was a House Centipede and Mike turned and saw the remains. "You killed it?!" he exclaimed.

"Yea, we did. I thought you might have opted for the humane method." Mike then proceeded to explain how easy it is to catch a bug with a glass. "You put the glass over the bug on the wall and then slide a piece of paper behind it and let it outside." Sounds logical, but it's not gonna happen. Andy then chimed in and said, "I'd like to see you try that method when you get bats in your apartment." What? Are you kidding me? What next? Luckily, Andy had bats in his previous, not current apartment, but nevertheless, I've got something new to worry about at night: bats flying down my damperless chimney. They'll enjoy the company of the rocks and leaves that currently come down my chimney.

Anyway, the moral of the story is if you want to get rid of bugs, you ask Andy; if you want to warm your apartment, you ask Mike; and if you want a useless waste of space, you just come by my apartment, I'll be here standing on the couch next to the fireplace hiding from the mice, worrying about the centipedes, waiting to swat a bat, and eating Sun chips.