One morning shortly after moving into our new apartment, I was about to step into the shower when I spotted something so bizarre and creepy-looking, I would have jumped out of my pants if I were wearing any.
It was an insect, but not one I had ever seen before. Reddish-yellow body, beady eyes, a pair of long antennae, and at least 30 legs. Not that I leaned in to count them; I was too busy freaking the hell out.
After showering, I ushered Tara into the bathroom to show her. Like me, she proceeded to freak the hell out. And implored me to get rid of the damn thing. Wifespeak for flush it down the toilet.
Normally, I’m a peaceable guy. Live and let live and all that jazz. I protested for a second, but Tara cut me off mid-sentence by saying, “I don’t want that thing crawling on me in the middle of the night!” That sealed the deal. I wasn’t about to take chances with a creature that looked like it stepped (and stepped and stepped and stepped) off the set of an alien movie, so I happily obliged, sending it to a watery grave. I mean, it could have been poisonous, right? Or at least delivered a nasty bite.
I snapped a pic before committing insecticide, and one reverse image search later, learned the Bug From Hell was actually a house centipede. They’re very common, as a matter of fact (but apparently not in the Pacific Northwest or South Dakota).
Not long after, coincidentally, I was scrolling through Facebook and came across this post from a friend.
Granted, “rarely bite” isn’t the same as “never bite,” but this was still enough to make me feel bad for killing our 30-legged visitor. I vowed to leave them alone going forward.
Good thing, too. We’ve spotted two more since. They still kinda freak me out, but I’m a-gonna let them be. After all, they eat spiders and ants, too.
I have a serious ant phobia, so house centipedes are definitely the lesser of two evils.
Don’t judge me.
You may notice a slight rebranding on Ye Olde Blogge. In my last post, I wrote, Next year, though. We’re going to OWN IT. Mark my words.
Was that a play on words? Oh, you betcha. Once upon a time, this blog was named Mark My Words. I even had a close friend design me a logo that served as the header for several years.
Thanks, Heidi!
Then I moved to South Dakota and it morphed into Swinged Cat. And then I decided to turn professional and just use my first name dot last name, opening me up to stalking but also potentially landing me a new job (it did).
God, I’m fickle.
I even own the domain markmywords.blog, though it currently points nowhere. It actually expires in a few weeks and I was going to let it go, but then The Travel Architect commented, “Mark my words” takes on a whole new (double) meaning when uttered by someone named Mark.
Girl, you know it’s true.
Well, THAT got me to thinking about how much I missed having “Mark My Words” as my blog name. So I asked myself, “Self, why can’t you still have Mark My Words as your blog name?” Seeing no good reason why I couldn’t – and slightly disturbed that I was both talking to and answering myself – I decided to go ahead and resurrect it. There’s no need to change the URL (though I did cave in and renew markmywords.blog just in case). If my name were Mike or Matt or Sebastian I wouldn’t bother, but really, as a writer named Mark, it’s pretty much my duty to call my blog Mark My Words.
As for Madtown Migrant, he’s alive and well on Instagram. Go check him out if you’d like. In the meantime, enlighten me:
Have you ever seen a house centipede before? Do you kill bugs or let them do their thing? Do you have any phobias you’d like to admit to?
Mark My Words 
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