The Tell-Tale Click
WARNING: If you are squeamish in regards to creepy crawlies and things that go click in the night, do not read this post!
This is a true story.
It was almost three o'clock...in the morning. I was in the midst of a bizarre, but entertaining dream whose contents I have now lost, when a distinct, regular, rhythmic clicking sound penetrated my consciousness. I tried to ignore it, thinking it was a cat playing outside my room, or perhaps something outdoors, but the sound grew louder. The steady cycle of click, click, click, [silence] finally roused me to full consciousness, where its true volume and clarity assured me at once that the sound was coming from within my room.
I knew I wasn't going to sleep without solving the mystery, so I got up and followed the sound when it repeated. It brought me first to the window, to test the outdoor theory one last time, but another repetition turned me to face the closet, the corner where rest a storage box, a plastic-covered and never-worn bridesmaid's dress, and my attention-needing laundry basket. Still, the noise clicked on. Visions of giant winged insects dive bombed me in my head.
Tentatively, I turned to examine the dress, whose space seemed to contain the clicking, more closely. In the light from my bedside lamp, I couldn't see details in the back of the closet, but I could notice the cobweb attached to the bottom of the plastic cover. This wasn't an entirely new discovery. Growing up in a house where spiders and other bugs were frequent visitors, I am neither squeamish about them nor do I have a pressing need to snuff them from existence (unless they're ants, which must DIE DIE DIE). My spider policy is one of "live and let live," most of the time; as long as they're not bugging anyone and dispatching of other bugs, I don't go to great lengths to get rid of them, and when I do, I make some effort to release them outside.
However, a creepy-crawly that clicked? Overstepping those bounds.
Click, click, click, I heard again, and though I brushed the dress aside to listen for whether the sound came from the closet wall, I found it was definitely localized to the dress. I tapped it nervously, up and down, to see if anything multi-eyed and scaly would jump out at me, but nothing did. So I took the dress out of the closet, brought it to an open, lit part of the room, shook -
And nothing came out.
Click. Click. Click.
With a wary eye and trying my best to keep it at arm's length, I took the dress out of the cover. It was just as frightfully cotton candy pink as I remembered, and though I had vague thoughts of selling it at some point, I wasn't sure if that would be entirely ethical if it had been home to some monstrous bug's nest. Fortunately, a quick search of the dress itself dispelled that notion.
Click. It was coming from the white plastic cover.
I set the dress aside and shook the cover once more to no avail, set it on the floor and tapped it without finding any unusual, gigantobug-sized lumps. I hadn't heard a click in a while, either, so I grabbed a tissue to clean off the web and mummified gunk that had attached to the cover's outside. As I turned to take it to the trash, I saw the spider (let's call him Jethro) scurry towards the closet in search of his stolen dinner. I jumped to chase him down, as Jethro had lost his reprieve...
When the DEAD BUG IN MY HAND WENT CLICK!
For indeed, the "dead" bug was not so; Jethro's dinner was a zombie bug, waiting for his return and freaking the fuck out at the same time I approached its captor. Coincidence or zombie intelligence? You decide.
Here's the icky part - in order to silence the zombie bug once and for all, I had to do some serious, crunchy squishing. But it was done, and though in the doing I had lost track of Jethro, I thought I was safe to return to bed.
Click. Click. Click.
AUGH! I returned to the plastic cover, armed with tissue, vengeance, and renewed bravery now that I knew the source. Another zombie bug, I figured, one that had not come detached when I shook its hideout, or one that had become lost on my dark but patterned carpet, where you can't see anything. But there was nothing on the ground, and yet the regular, rhythmic, not caused by plastic settling clicking went on.
And dear reader - I will swear to whatever deity or object you prefer that though I turned the cover inside and out, shook it in all directions, and looked at every square inch with my own eyes, I could not find another zombie bug.
My search, it seemed, was enough; the mysterious beast grew silent. I know because I stayed up just a little longer to see if the moth man would attack scribble some notes on the incident to share with you this morning. Then I crawled back in bed and managed not to have nightmares, just to oversleep.
(As you can see, I survived to tell the tale, but my motivation to get rid of the dress has shot up like a rocket. The tags are still attached and it's clearly unworn; any ideas of where I might go/what I might do with it are most welcome.)
This is a true story.
It was almost three o'clock...in the morning. I was in the midst of a bizarre, but entertaining dream whose contents I have now lost, when a distinct, regular, rhythmic clicking sound penetrated my consciousness. I tried to ignore it, thinking it was a cat playing outside my room, or perhaps something outdoors, but the sound grew louder. The steady cycle of click, click, click, [silence] finally roused me to full consciousness, where its true volume and clarity assured me at once that the sound was coming from within my room.
I knew I wasn't going to sleep without solving the mystery, so I got up and followed the sound when it repeated. It brought me first to the window, to test the outdoor theory one last time, but another repetition turned me to face the closet, the corner where rest a storage box, a plastic-covered and never-worn bridesmaid's dress, and my attention-needing laundry basket. Still, the noise clicked on. Visions of giant winged insects dive bombed me in my head.
Tentatively, I turned to examine the dress, whose space seemed to contain the clicking, more closely. In the light from my bedside lamp, I couldn't see details in the back of the closet, but I could notice the cobweb attached to the bottom of the plastic cover. This wasn't an entirely new discovery. Growing up in a house where spiders and other bugs were frequent visitors, I am neither squeamish about them nor do I have a pressing need to snuff them from existence (unless they're ants, which must DIE DIE DIE). My spider policy is one of "live and let live," most of the time; as long as they're not bugging anyone and dispatching of other bugs, I don't go to great lengths to get rid of them, and when I do, I make some effort to release them outside.
However, a creepy-crawly that clicked? Overstepping those bounds.
Click, click, click, I heard again, and though I brushed the dress aside to listen for whether the sound came from the closet wall, I found it was definitely localized to the dress. I tapped it nervously, up and down, to see if anything multi-eyed and scaly would jump out at me, but nothing did. So I took the dress out of the closet, brought it to an open, lit part of the room, shook -
And nothing came out.
Click. Click. Click.
With a wary eye and trying my best to keep it at arm's length, I took the dress out of the cover. It was just as frightfully cotton candy pink as I remembered, and though I had vague thoughts of selling it at some point, I wasn't sure if that would be entirely ethical if it had been home to some monstrous bug's nest. Fortunately, a quick search of the dress itself dispelled that notion.
Click. It was coming from the white plastic cover.
I set the dress aside and shook the cover once more to no avail, set it on the floor and tapped it without finding any unusual, gigantobug-sized lumps. I hadn't heard a click in a while, either, so I grabbed a tissue to clean off the web and mummified gunk that had attached to the cover's outside. As I turned to take it to the trash, I saw the spider (let's call him Jethro) scurry towards the closet in search of his stolen dinner. I jumped to chase him down, as Jethro had lost his reprieve...
When the DEAD BUG IN MY HAND WENT CLICK!
For indeed, the "dead" bug was not so; Jethro's dinner was a zombie bug, waiting for his return and freaking the fuck out at the same time I approached its captor. Coincidence or zombie intelligence? You decide.
Here's the icky part - in order to silence the zombie bug once and for all, I had to do some serious, crunchy squishing. But it was done, and though in the doing I had lost track of Jethro, I thought I was safe to return to bed.
Click. Click. Click.
AUGH! I returned to the plastic cover, armed with tissue, vengeance, and renewed bravery now that I knew the source. Another zombie bug, I figured, one that had not come detached when I shook its hideout, or one that had become lost on my dark but patterned carpet, where you can't see anything. But there was nothing on the ground, and yet the regular, rhythmic, not caused by plastic settling clicking went on.
And dear reader - I will swear to whatever deity or object you prefer that though I turned the cover inside and out, shook it in all directions, and looked at every square inch with my own eyes, I could not find another zombie bug.
My search, it seemed, was enough; the mysterious beast grew silent. I know because I stayed up just a little longer to see if the moth man would attack scribble some notes on the incident to share with you this morning. Then I crawled back in bed and managed not to have nightmares, just to oversleep.
(As you can see, I survived to tell the tale, but my motivation to get rid of the dress has shot up like a rocket. The tags are still attached and it's clearly unworn; any ideas of where I might go/what I might do with it are most welcome.)