The Visitor

The famous shower scene from Psycho has survived multiple decades. It's been redone in countless other movies, scary ones and parodies. And it makes sense. It's because there's almost no other place nor time when one feels more vulnerable.

My showers tend to be pretty utilitarian. My goal, make sure I'm clean and fresh. And as I shower (usually while running late) I am running through random checklists in my head.

So, it was an ordinary morning filled with rushing and thinking about things to make sure I'm not rushing in the future Spoiler: This happened a week ago, I am the future me, telling the story of the much younger (by a week) me. And my plans for not rushing had no effect. While under the shower head, I looked to the opposite end of my shower, that's not really that large. And from behind the curtain, scampering into full view was a common house centipede. You know the one, with more legs than any being should probably have. And it knows how to maneuver each little one, so it saunters around at an unnatural speed.

The little bugger came crawling around my stark white shower curtain. Each little leg was highlighted by the plain white background it was standing on. It stopped in its tracks upon seeing me. I stopped in my tracks upon seeing it, my soap covered self was on high alert.

Now, I've read to not kill these creatures because they eat other bugs and they're the good guys. It's better for my heart if these good guys remain hidden somewhere deep in the crevasses of my basement, where we will surely never cross paths. Yet, here we were, staring each other down. Now even if I had wanted to kill it, it was on a shower curtain, above eye level. It was not a hard surface to smash the insect body upon. And a loofah is not good for smashing.

So, I spoke to it, like any other normal human would do. "Listen, if you don't move, I will not kill you. I'll leave you in peace." I don't know if this centipede spoke English or not, but it accepted my bluff and did not move. My eyes never left it. I finished rinsing off the soap and quietly snuck out at my end of the curtain. I then abandoned my house (went to work) until later, hoping it had gone on its merry legged way.

My husband was home when I returned, and he mentioned he needed to shower before he rushed out for the night. It was then I remembered.... my "friend" and told him the story. I also assured him that it was hours and hours ago and the centipede had assuredly moved on by now. But be prepared just in case.

From the commotion I heard through the closed door and my husband appearing within a millisecond outside of the bathroom door wrapped in a towel I knew my "friend" had waited there patiently all day. And this is where he met his demise.

It's multilegged body had leapt off of the shower curtain at my husband and scampered behind the sink. After my husband's initial retreat, he regrouped now armed with intelligence of where the little bugger was and the equipment to solve the problem. And he solved the problem.

So, it is here that the story ends. For the insect and the blog post.

-Good Day, Kind Friends