Sarah and the Centipede

We have a pet.

Sarah, Katherine, Cassandra and I arrived at our apartment to find it not only had two bathrooms, but a good sized living room, dining table, ample closet space.... And an inhabitant.

After our immediate party through the rooms, where we squealed and danced our way through every nook and cabinet, we picked our bedrooms.

"Uuuugh!" was heard from the master bedroom.

We came running.

"An huge bug just ran into my jeans!" (no worries, the jeans were off, lying on the bedspread)

Me: How huge? Like, 'ew, a bug' huge, or actually, like, Huge?

Sarah: Pretty damn huge.

Cassandra: It's not here now... (picking through pants) AUGH!

An enormous, two inch long bright canary yellow centipede erupts from the jeans and vanishes down the side of the mattress.

Me: Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Cassandra: Where did it go?!

My first instinct was to rush down the hall, but I stop. My summer plans were to become self sufficient, courageous, and able. to. handle. shit.

Me: Ok, guys. Wait here. (I run, and re-appear with a shoe and a roll of toilet paper) We are NOT getting a boy. Let's get this bug, bitches!

The next ten minutes involved everything from shifting the furniture to peeling the bed clothes, but no centipede was found.

A few minutes later when Russell and Corey arrived ("The cavalry is here!"-Corey) the bed was almost fully stripped, the mattress pulled over, the furniture re-assembled yet again, and STILL no centipede. They doubted it's existence, and, in the manner of irritating men everywhere, periodically pretended to jump and point to make us shriek. Bastards.

BUT. It has made me braver! After stripping my own bed and shifting my own furniture out of sheer paranoia, I was forced to relax. Bugs happen. Fucking enormous, canary yellow, two inch long centipedes happen. I am in a foreign, southern country, and must adapt to the little creepy awful things as well as the larger, interesting, pretty things. This is one of those little things that, in life, must be dealt with. With poise. And perhaps a shoe and some toilet paper.

Perhaps we'll name him Fran.