The Scariest Bug Yet!

Elsewhere in this blog I have commented on the distribution of power in my marriage regarding bugs. Well such an occasion occurred just the other day. Being away, I received a message from my wife that she had killed the scariest bug yet. I also received instructions that the deceased was still on the kitchen floor and I was to remove it as soon as I arrived on the premises. My imagination ran wild with this news and I immediately replied to my wife's message asking if she had had to use the plastic sword to dispatch this hideous insect. Then it really hit me. Just how large and creepy was this bug? Indeed my wife had said she killed the intruder—yet if it wasn't dead, I was going to walk right into the mandibles of a six foot tall, hideously wounded insect! As I said, my imagination was running wild... Well as fate would have it, I survived the ordeal. As I carried in several bags of groceries upon getting home, I figured I had a good chance of survival since the $53 worth of food should keep an insect busy for at least a few seconds—hopefully allowing me enough time to run to the closet and get the plastic sword! As I entered the kitchen I saw... nothing. There was absolutely nothing! And by nothing, I am not saying that there weren’t the usual furnishings of a modern American kitchen—because indeed there was. But in the middle of the floor where my wife warned me I would find the gruesome carnage, there was nothing. I carefully put my grocery bags down to examine the crime scene. Then, I saw it! The small and withered remains of a centipede! Obviously though the hours had taken its toll, this small bit of exoskeleton had once been a large and amazingly fast intruder! I was at once in awe of my wife's bravery. She had aimed her shoe with all the destructive power of an RPG and left her adversary utterly annihilated! I reached for a scrap of paper towel and wiped up the residue. I carefully placed the corpse into the wastebasket in the garage so my wife would be satisfied the dead villain was out of the house. Then I went back inside and unpacked my groceries.