fire_of_avalon

A major theme in my life has quite suddenly become exposure to things that frighten me, and terribly enough this new theme joined forces with my life's M.O. of throwing ridiculous bad luck at me this morning.

This morning after about an hours worth of sleep I headed in to work to count all the freakin' money from yesterday. I headed into our business office where A, the manager on duty met me with her usual deadpan delivery.

"There's a thousand leg creature in the cash office."

I knew immediately what she was talking about and the skin across my belly started to crawl. If I hadn't had my testicles removed all those years ago to keep from being a complete BAMF they'd have drawn up back inside of me.

A house centipede(spoilered because how hard was it for me to freaking get this image? I'm not putting anyone else through that or accidentally finding it when I look back through my entries in the future) is a completely harmless insect. It never or rarely bites people, it isn't really known as a disease carrier. But it looks awful. It looks like it will eat out your eyes and tapdance on your optic nerve until kingdom come.

"Where?" I asked.

"I was getting the cage keys out for you and it was in the drawer. I waited until it moved before I grabbed them and slammed the door."

I spun in a circle and hugged myself. "A, you don't understand. I cannot be in that room if I can't see it. We have to get it."

"Okay, Skippy you go on a head," she replied.

"You're the boss. You have the responsibility."

We decided to approach it together. And my together, I mean A opened the drawer really fast and jumped backwards and I hid behind the reinforced steel door.

The second the drawer opened I saw it skitter. And I am not ashamed to tell you that I shrieked like a small child and took two steps backwards. It was as big as Jojo. It skittered, but it could've walked like a man.

"OKAY OKAY. Ok ok ok ok ok ok. What do we do. We burn down the building and never speak of this misery again," I said, hopefully.

"We can't squish it in the drawer. And I don't want to, it might climb me," A replied.

"Ok ok ok ok. Okay. O. Kay. We need to catch it. We need to set a trap? No. We need to catch it in like a cup," I said. I eventually went to my office and brought back the tomato jar I use to change Blossom the Work Fish's water.

And the centipede was smurfing gone.

"A. A. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."

"What?!"

"IT'S GONE. Ohhhhhh god, where did it goooooo." "Megan, I don't know."

"It could be anywhere. IT COULD BE ON ME."

A walked back into the cash office and kicked the drawer shut. And then kicked it a few more times, to rile it up. I was back at my post beside the door. She eased the drawer open and I leaned in.

"It's no-"

I saw it, on her left. It had a knife, I swear to smurfing god.

"A!!!!!! AAAAAAAAA! RUN RUN smurfING RUN." I screeched and squealed.

I have never seen someone move so fast. I was dancing, beside myself with fear, and A raced out of the office, the jar abandoned on the safe.

We would have to close the store, it was the only way.

Eventually we collected ourselves and went back inside. Peered in the drawer. Nothing. Looked in the chair, on the floor under the desk. Nothing.

Then I turned around.

It was behind us.

There was more screeching and flailing from me. Eventually I hit it with a box, ran out of the room like I'd caught fire, and resumed dancing and squalling. And then I ran away to re-set our jewelry case.

All I can say is thank god it wasn't a cockroach. If it had been, I'd still be standing paralyzed in the cash office, too scared to move.

Moral of the story: If any of you smurfers ever bring one of those things near me I will cut your face.