Sunday, December 18, 2011

We Even Set It On Fire!...

So, judging by the title, you could be thinking a few things:

1) I destroyed something and then set it on fire,
2) I was so amazing at some sort of party that I "set the place on fire," so to speak,
3) or you could just be completely confused.

At any rate, what I'm talking about is a centipede. That's right, a centipede. Now, what most people don't realize is that a centipede is more dangerous than it's made out to be.

First of all, they are incredibly fast. They remind me of small snakes, the way they seem to slither so swiftly. This makes them so hard to catch, especially if you have to run and get a weapon to kill them with because by the time you're back, it's gone.

Second of all, these suckers have stingers! They are in their two front legs and they've got venom in them. From what I gather, it's extremely painful and causes massive swelling to the affected area. My dad told me that it's so painful that many people faint, want to get the limb amputated all together, and some even die. I'm pretty scared.

Last, but definitely not least, they are very hard to kill. They've got a hard, protective shell, so spraying them doesn't really work, banging them with something doesn't really work, and, as you will see in this story, setting them on fire doesn't work either.

Recently we have seen two centipedes in our house. The first time, we were caught off guard and extremely unprepared. Therefore, we found ourselves spending quite a long time using different methods, such as spraying him and hitting him repeatedly with a shoe. We eventually took him onto our patio and my dad hit him over, and over, and over, and over... and finally just chucked him off the edge. That shook all of us up, to where we weren't even comfortable sleeping in our beds, afraid that this evil centipede, or maybe his friends, will come back for revenge.

After a couple days of not seeing any, we started getting back into the groove, but then I heard my mom scream. I knew exactly what it was, so I grabbed a shoe and ran upstairs. It was in my parents' shower this time and had crept through one of the bathroom windows. My mom was in the middle of flat ironing her hair, so she just yelled directions to my dad. My dad was beating the living daylights out of it with a tub scrubber, but when I saw the centipede, he was still scurrying along like nothing was going on. Then I heard my mom say to light him on fire, so I ran downstairs and got the lighter. My dad took it and put the flame DIRECTLY on him for about ten minutes. You know the dude was still flopping around? Finally his stinger was burnt to a crisp, so he started to drag it about, still trying to escape (this was one of the most disturbing scenes that I have ever seen, by the way). What was worse is that my dad banged his head off with the scrubber, and his body was still wiggling. EWWWWWWW... My dad just flung him out the window afterwords.

Now what scares me the most is the fact that these guys seem immune to dying. No matter what you do, they still live on. I mean, after setting it on fire and cutting off the head, it was still ready for more. They're worse than zombies because at least, for them, these two methods seem to work.

I've already explained to you guys about the wildlife here on the island, but I have got to say that centipedes are the scariest of all.

(I just had to show you guys this one. She OBVIOUSLY doesn't know how much pain she could be in for in a few seconds :S)

(Not that friendly, huh? Check out those stingers!!!)


Love Always <3,
Katrina Lowell

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