An Unexpected Visitor

Feeling pretty good about my newfound electrical skills, I went off to bed last night figuring I’d tackle the studio light today. ITMan had gone to bed a couple of hours earlier, but the cats were still up with me, and they followed me down to the bedroom like the dutiful dog-like creatures they’ve become.

At about 1:30 a.m. the cats woke me up out of a not-so-sound sleep (thanks to that cappuccino at 3 p.m.-ish; I really should know better by now). They were playing with something right by the bed in the corner of the room, so I turned on the light to find the dang toy and take it away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a toy.

I proceeded to spoil my image of self-sufficient womanhood by going all squeamish and screeching at ITMan to get up and kill this thing crawling around on the floor trying to escape the predatory interests of the kitties. I’m guessing it was some type of millipede: dark brown, flatish, skinny and about an inch and a quarter long, having a million legs. Eeeewww!

It kinda looked like (don’t click if you’re squeamish!) this, but I didn’t see any yellow bits around the legs. If you want to see the original page at the very informative site where I found this picture and read it’s accompanying info, visit this page at What’s That Bug and look for the letter about the Flat-Backed Millipede. The most interesting part of the verbiage there:

“It is a flat-backed millipede (Polydesmida order). Very pretty, but many species like this secrete a cyanide compound to defend themselves. As long as you don’t eat one or lick it, you should survive.”

Um. Thanks. I think. And “pretty”?!? Not when it’s inside my house, thanks.

The sucker moved fast and though Patches moved off pretty quickly once I was out of bed, Shadow is the dumb one and just wouldn’t leave it alone even long enough for ITMan to get something to kill it with. Not knowing what it was, I didn’t figure I should let him start his own extermination process, since it could have been deadly for all I knew last night (and cyanide doesn’t exactly sound good after my research this morning either), so I had to sit there and protect the bugger until it’s proper time to die at the hands of a Swiffer wielding knight in shining armor.

Obviously the bugs in the neighborhood have not yet gotten the message that they can live as long as they don’t venture into the house. If they come in the house they become uninvited guests, and then they must die unless I’m feeling charitable (or just don’t want to clean up after a messy death), and on those rare occasions of charity, I capture them in a glass and show them the door to freedom. I’m kind of like that about uninvited visitors all they way around, even if they’re people, and I don’t have a glass big enough to be charitable with people, so do call ahead if you’d ever like to visit. Though I imagine visiting the millipede-hosting house isn’t high on your list of to-dos, and understandably so.

I don’t DO bugs, but heck, I’d rather have big spiders than slimy crawly things on the floor. Eeeewww! I think I must call the owners and see if they’ve ever had this problem, and what they’d like to do to fix it. I’m sure they’ll love that. This item can go on the ever-growing list of things to talk to them about, including the heating which is still not completely fixed!

I do hope that a (hopefully) hot shower and maybe a warm brotchen from the bakery will help my state of mind today, so that I can get to the business of repairing my tarnished self-sufficient woman image and get the studio light installed…I think mum’s the word about this creepy-crawly thing with the kids, too. They’d freak out more than I did, and that’s saying something.

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