Okay, I know what you're thinking: You must be having a really bad week if THAT was the best thing you've heard! Well, sort of. Thanks for your concern.
We didn't know each other well, only three months really. He kept visiting my house uninvited. Now, don't get me wrong—I never really ASKED him to leave. However, I did scream and yell a lot.
Sigh. I guess I'd better start at the beginning, or you're just not going to understand. It all started back in September when I went on a retreat with my class. By my class, I mean the juniors at my university. I'm the vice president, so I helped plan the event, but I had no idea of the dire consequences the location of the retreat would bring about.
We went to a little camp a few hours away from my university, and we had tons of fun. We learned in particular about the John 16:33, which talks about taking heart because Jesus has already taken over the world. I may write a separate post just about that. But ANYWAY, I was an idiot and left my suitcase open in my cabin. Little did I know what a TERRIBLE idea that was.
Sometime in the night, or perhaps even in the day, when I wasn't looking, he crawled into a deep cavern of my suitcase, entirely unbeknowst to me. I wouldn't discover the horrifying truth for days.
Fast forward two days. I'm back in my room, and of course it's messy. Stuff is stinkin' everywhere. It's 3:30 a.m., my roommate is asleep, and I just came back from the shower. She'd fallen asleep with the light on, so I just sneaked inside, trying not to wake her up. I kicked some things out of my way, because it was a little more difficult than it should have been to get in the door.
I kicked my suitcase, when suddenly, to my utter horrification, something awful happened. My heart momentarily ceased to beat, my blood stopped pumping, my stomach clenched, and my own grass-breaking scream echoed in my ears. For there, just inches from my foot and out of my suitcase, sprung one of the more horrifying things I've ever seen.
In fact, it puts such irrational fear in my heart that I'm actually scared to post a picture of it here. Yes, I have Chilopodophobia.
Picture this centipede, except bigger, with more legs. Picture this, except picture it running 50 miles an hour NEXT TO YOUR FEET and STRAIGHT INTO YOUR CLOSET.
This situation was just unfathomable. What was I supposed to do? At this point, my roommate woke up yelling to find out what was wrong. Breathless, I explained the situation, shaking and pointing at my closet. She mumbled something about going back to sleep, rolled over, and did just that.
I spent the next hour painstakingly removing each article of clothing from my closet with a the pole that had previously held up my closet curtain. I'd hold up the skirt or whatever, beat it with the stick, declare it clean, and move onto another. I did this with EVERYTHING in the closet, even checking the shoes.
Nothing.
It was nowhere to be found! Which only meant one thing: The call was coming from within the house!
Okay, I don't really care if you got that reference. But anyway, this meant that the centipede was: SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE ROOM! Now I ask you, how the HECK was I supposed to sleep in that room knowing that somewhere in the shadows, lurked that THING.
I slept with the lights on.
The next few days, I was on edge. I was afraid to look in my closet, afraid to sleep, afraid to pick up objects for fear the horrible creature would spring from beneath it. It was a scary time.
Yes, I'm being goofy about this, but I'm also serious. I really do have an irrational fear of centipedes. I went out and bought Raid and proceeded to spray almost the entire can all over my room. It smelled unbelievably bad in there, and if I hadn't departed and left the door to my room open for two hours, I think I would have died from asphyxiation.
But gradually my fears ebbed. Days past, and the centipede remained missing in action. I decided it was safe to assume it had either keeled over and died from Raid poisoning or fled the vicinity because of the putrid smell.
I was wrong. I was very wrong.
One morning I was sitting bleary-eyed at my desk trying to fix my hair. I reached toward one of my drawers when all of a sudden, the long-missing creature sped out of one of the cracks in my desk, stared me as I screamed bloody murder, and slipped back into another crack.
I gave a whoop and a battle cry as I quite literally yanked my pencil drawer out of my desk. No centipede.
My roommate was yelling again, running to my aid. She told me not to scream so loud; I'd scared her. She promised me that she's kill it if it ever showed its face again.
I didn't feel better. I felt worse.
Months passed, and life went on. It so happened the next part of this saga happened during probably the worst week of my year. I was trudging back to my dorm room when I got a call from my roommate. I answered it in the elevator.
"Hello?" I asked without enthusiasm.
"Are you sitting down?" my roommate asked.
I glanced at the opening elevator doors, suddenly feeling like I was in a movie. "No... why do you ask?"
"I have some news, and I think you should be sitting down to hear it," she specified.
"If it's not going to make me happy, I don't want to hear it," I grumbled and walked into our room.
There she was, sitting up rod-straight on her bed, her eyes wide and her hands clenched by her sides. "Melissa," she said. And suddenly she went nuts. "I KILLED IT!" she yelled.
I dropped my bags. "Killed WHAT?!"
Her eyes got even wider. "I killed the centipede."
I gave a battle cry and jumped up and down, suddenly realizing that this day was suddenly worthwhile.
And that, my friends, is why the murder of my unlikely, unpleasant, and unwanted acquaintance, the centipede, was the best news I've heard in over a week.
Try to beat it. No, please do. Good news is good.
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