When I was in college my sisters and I rented an old two-story house on the edge of campus. It had creaky wood floors, two cats, a pit bull, an iguana, a baby alligator that lived in a plastic baby pool upstairs that would sometimes escape, occasionally a bat and I think there may have been a bird or two in there.
Sometimes when I came home I would find find the alligator, escaped from the baby-pool, and my fluffy calico cat engaged in a hissing and posturing contest in the corner by the door. Welcome home.
The one thing that still haunts me today are the disgusting, gigantic, evil centipedes. These things were monsters. Instead of short stumpy legs they had huge grand-daddy-long-leg legs. Rows and rows of 'em. They used to charge out of the shower drain and the vent on the wall to wage war on whomever had just sat down to pee. The way I remember it they were the size of my forearm and may or may not have had fangs dripping with rabies-esq foam. Their appearance and mad-dash for the pee-er was enough to cut you off mid-stream every time. Even first thing in the morning.
One day I decided to draw a picture of these creatures hoping to purge the phobia I'd begun cultivating. When I was done the thing was brandishing axes, pistols and blades with its too-many-legs, snarling with bloody fangs and for some reason, wearing my backpack. I guess they were thieves as well as murderers.
Huh? You don't think they invaded my bathroom with the sole purpose of burrowing under my skin in a pod-people plot to take over the world? Well, screw you. It's obvious this was their goal.
The mass centipede invasion of 2004 was the beginning of my insect phobia that has now grown to epic proportions.
That, is having the pee scared in to you.
