Ode to the House Centipede
Do not click on the link below if creepy insects freak you out. I'm just giving you fair warning.
It should be too cold for bugs now, damnit. But today I came home and found one of these on the floor near the piano and almost flipped out. It's a house centipede, a.k.a. a brown fuzzy, a.k.a. a creature from the bowels of hell itself. I loathe centipedes with a terrified, flaming hatred usually reserved for tornadoes and idiots with access to unstable chemicals. (My friend got bitten by a centipede once, a huge stripy Amazonian-looking specimen that was hiding in a leaf pile and crawled up her leg, and it kinda scarred us both as kids.) So after disposing of the thing (with only minor yelping, I might add) I did what any sensible writer would do, and composed a poem dedicated to said foe.
Did I say a sensible writer? Never mind. This is me we're talking about, after all.
Scutigera Coleoptrata
An animate
Bit of string
With legs,
(God, far too many legs)
You are my nemesis
House centipede.
You lurk
In inconvenient zones
And squoogle out
Across the floor
At inconvenient times
Which, yes,
Of course,
Is any time at all.
A brief run-in with you
Is quite enough
To spoil my day and appetite.
How I despise
Your creepiness!
On seeing you
I shriek, “Brown fuzzy!
Kill it!”
And dance around you frantically.
I don’t want you escaping
For an encounter at a later time.
To find you on my toothbrush
Or near my bed would send me
Into paroxysms of disgust.
So I’ll locate a handy shoe
Or, if it were on hand,
A rocket launcher,
And soon proceed,
As dear Mal Reynolds said,
To end you.
You may be called
House centipede
(As if you were domestic)
You nasty beast,
But you are never
Ever
Welcome around me.
*eyes icon* If only I had Ronon around. He could just deal with the centipedes for me instead.
It should be too cold for bugs now, damnit. But today I came home and found one of these on the floor near the piano and almost flipped out. It's a house centipede, a.k.a. a brown fuzzy, a.k.a. a creature from the bowels of hell itself. I loathe centipedes with a terrified, flaming hatred usually reserved for tornadoes and idiots with access to unstable chemicals. (My friend got bitten by a centipede once, a huge stripy Amazonian-looking specimen that was hiding in a leaf pile and crawled up her leg, and it kinda scarred us both as kids.) So after disposing of the thing (with only minor yelping, I might add) I did what any sensible writer would do, and composed a poem dedicated to said foe.
Did I say a sensible writer? Never mind. This is me we're talking about, after all.
Scutigera Coleoptrata
An animate
Bit of string
With legs,
(God, far too many legs)
You are my nemesis
House centipede.
You lurk
In inconvenient zones
And squoogle out
Across the floor
At inconvenient times
Which, yes,
Of course,
Is any time at all.
A brief run-in with you
Is quite enough
To spoil my day and appetite.
How I despise
Your creepiness!
On seeing you
I shriek, “Brown fuzzy!
Kill it!”
And dance around you frantically.
I don’t want you escaping
For an encounter at a later time.
To find you on my toothbrush
Or near my bed would send me
Into paroxysms of disgust.
So I’ll locate a handy shoe
Or, if it were on hand,
A rocket launcher,
And soon proceed,
As dear Mal Reynolds said,
To end you.
You may be called
House centipede
(As if you were domestic)
You nasty beast,
But you are never
Ever
Welcome around me.
*eyes icon* If only I had Ronon around. He could just deal with the centipedes for me instead.