jamelah.net

Earlier today I was getting ready to take a shower because hey, I like showering! Showering is good! And I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but where I live, it generally takes a minute for the water to get warm, so I tend to turn the water on and let it run for a minute before hopping into the shower to do the showering that I do in the shower. Usually, it goes like this:

1. I walk into the bathroom.
2. I lean over the edge of the tub and reach for the faucet.
3. I turn on the hot water.
4. I get undressed (I don’t know about you, but I find that it tends to be more effective, showering in the nude).
5. I get in the shower, where the water is warm and lovely, and take a shower. (The word “shower” has stopped making sense to me. Shower shower shower. What a weird word.)
6. Then I get out of the shower and get dressed and move on with my day. In case you were wondering. Though I typically sit around in my towel for at least 30 minutes for no good reason except, you know, why not?

Anyway, I went into the bathroom, and instead of just leaning over the edge of the tub to reach the faucet, I deviated from my routine so slightly. This time, I stepped into the tub. But just one foot. So for those of you keeping track at home, I had one foot in the tub, and one foot out of the tub. Why? I don’t know. I like to shake things up once in awhile, because I’m such a rebel! So I’m reaching for the faucet, and then this THING comes out of the drain and starts running around really fast. I also started running around really fast, saying really intelligent things like “Oh shit!” and “AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!111111″ And then all the running around stopped and I got a look at my nemesis. It looked like this, except less blurry in real life:

You might be wondering two things, and I know what they are, and isn’t it freaky the way I can read your mind? Anyway, let me explain them for you now:

1. No, I didn’t have the camera with me when I originally encountered the centipede. I don’t take the camera with me when I take a shower. Seriously, I don’t. The photograph came later in the story, but I thought I would put it a little higher up, so that you could see the scary scary scary thing in my tub.

2. That line is not ring around my tub, it’s the bottom of the shower curtain, which is weird.

Okay and now that those important issues have been taken care of, let’s move on.

So once I figured out that my enemy was a centipede, I did what any rational adult human being would do: I ran away. I ran away, and I IMed Caryn about it. And then I realized that if I was ever going to take a shower, I needed to go and face my problem. So I went in, and that bastard centipede was chillin’ in the drain, like the drain was a fabulous vacation resort, or something. At this point, I believe I said something really insightful, something like “Gah!” and then I exited the bathroom again. But at least this time I didn’t run. Then I IMed Caryn some more, about how I didn’t know if I’d be able to go back in there, and how I was stuck, showerless, sitting around in my underwear. Because I’m a real winner.

Finally, I talked myself into being brave. Because what if the centipede called up his centipede buddies and the bathroom turned into a veritable centipede fiesta and I did nothing to stop it? I couldn’t let such a thing happen. Not on my watch. So I took a deep breath and went to prepare for combat:

Jamelah: i’m going in
Caryn: good luck, cobra
Jamelah: if i don’t come back, tell the world i had fun with my mom

After procuring a weapon (and my camera), I returned to the bathroom, and this time, I would not be scared away by the centipede and all of its long creepy crawly legs that allowed it to move with freakishly high speeds. No. That centipede had chosen the wrong bathtub to hang out in, and it was going to pay.

I approached the centipede’s lair and discovered it still sitting in the drain. It seemed to sense my presence, because it suddenly ran a lap around the tub. I felt the familiar urge to say “AAAAAHHHHH!!!!” and run away, but I stood my ground. Then I took photograph of the centipede, you know, for posterity. Then I raised my weapon and brought it down on the centipede, ending the creepy-crawly reign of terror.

What was my weapon? I’m so glad you hypothetically asked for the sake of this paragraph. My weapon was the Clorox Ready Mop. See, people always say to kill insects and other similar-ish critters with a tissue or a paper towel or something, but I find this unsatisfactory, mainly because it means that my hand is going to have to get close to the critter and that I am subsequently going to have to feel it go squish and no. No. I just can’t deal with that. I’ve tried brooms, and I find them superior to the tissue/paper towel method because the broom offers a long handle, which means no contact. But the broom method has two problems, both of which stem from the fact that a broom has bristles:

1. The bug/spider/whatever can crawl up into the bristles and escape.

2. Provided the bristles do actually kill the bug/spider/whatever, the carcass of this creature usually gets stuck on the bristles and needs to be removed, which is, you know, gross.

So, the Clorox Ready Mop was perfect, because it has the long handle, but instead of bristles, it has a flat hard surface which is perfect for squishing things. Very important.

And now I should go clean the centipede carcass out of the tub so that I can take my shower. Finally. Because yes, I did just write a blog post about it (still in my underwear!) first. I have my priorities in order.

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