Jason M. Jones

I just walked into the downstairs bathroom (or powder room as my wife calls it) and discovered a centipede on the wall. I stood a moment and stared at it. Should I kill it? I wondered. Or let it be? For the most part, I don’t have an issue with letting bugs in my house live. The majority of the time, I never see them again. But on occasion, I questions this. When we first moved in, I discovered a cave cricket on the steps that lead to our attic. I had never seen a cave cricket before, and it looked to me like something from outer space. If you’ve never seen one yourself, I call to your attention exhibit B to the right-hand side of the page here (exhibit A being the picture of the centipede above). In any case, if you saw this in your house, what would you do? It didn’t move, so I called my wife to give it a look. “What do you think?” I asked her. “Isn’t it weird?” She went to the kitchen to get a plastic container, and using an index card and the container, we trapped it and let it loose outside (which granted, might have been cruel, given it was the middle of winter). A few days later, I looked it up online, discovered it was harmless, and whenever I’ve seen them around the house since then, mostly in the basement, I’ve let them alone.

The centipede, however, was different. I didn’t necessarily want to kill it, but I’d read that bites can cause irritation and inflammation, and given that I have two kids in the house, I felt it my duty to take care of the centipede. The insect was situated on the wall, about four feet up, next to the toilet and above the toilet paper roll. After I finished micturating, I reached for a piece of toilet paper to take care of the centipede. Of course, I wadded it up to reduce the chance of skin to centipede contact, and as I did so, it let go of the wall. I want to say it fell because saying it fell gives the centipede no volition. But it looked to know what it was doing, and as it let go, it dropped about three feet. If the centipede was an inch long, that’s 36 times the size of its body, which it strikes me now upon reflection is like some super human Captain American type shit (for us, that would be like falling over 200 feet). I watched, as the centipede hit the heating ducts that line the walls in our kitchen and powder room, scurried along, and disappeared inside, and I’m not ashamed to say that as it did this, I jumped back. I was oddly shaken that a thing so small could cause me such alarm. My heart gave a few little flutters before I calmed myself. But still, I was satisfied I didn’t have to kill it. For the most part, my unspoken agreement with insects it that when you’re outside, you’re all right, but once we’re in the confines of my home, I may have to kill you. This doesn’t mean I get pleasure from it. I certainly don’t want to do it most of the time. If I close my eyes and you’re gone, we’re cool. But if you persist (and I’m looking at you stink bugs) we’ll do that dance. Just please, don’t try to pull that Bruce Willis shit on me the centipede did. I don’t think my heart can take it. Thanks.