I rank myself fairly high on the Toughness Meter. I played football and rugby. I have broken several bones. I smoke cigars. I got a bunch of tattoos. I pick up snakes when I see them out and about.
However.......
when the above pictured house centipede goes scurrying across my floor, I have been known to promptly Curly-shuffle far, far away and assume the fetal position in a remote corner.
Known in the science world as Scutigera coleoptrata, these bad boys originated from the Mediterranean area but have creepy-crawled their way all over the world, including my basement.
There is no way any description can give their heinous looks any justice, but it is sort of a mutated cricket with about a trillion legs that work in unison like an evil mustache.
They are repulsive creatures, to say the least, and grow to be about four inches long. As if that was not bad enough, when you try to capture them, their legs break off and do a funky voodoo death twitch across the floor. Just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Fortunately, my wife takes command when the ruffians show themselves and she has found that the best way to rub one out of existence is to don elbow-length rubber gloves, get a piece of packaging tape and stick the things up (literally). She then disposes of the glued suckers in the trash. Thank goodness for her because I can not deal with them. I officially tap out and submit. I would sooner wrestle a tiger shark or tangle with a crocodile than have to take on the horror that lurks in my cellar.
Now if you will excuse me, I am running late for a pedicure.
