My whole life I have had an irrational fear of thousand-leggers. I am okay with most rodents, serpents, amphibians, and insects, but show me a thousand-legger and I will go full-out girl on you, jumping on top of furniture and whatnot.
Alyssa seems to have inherited my fear of thousand-leggers...and her father's fear of all things serpent/insect. She goes wacko at the sight of any kind of bug--even the harmless stink bugs of which she encounters 10-ish on any given day.
(To be continued... Brooke is crying/Brooke's nose is running/Alyssa needs to get taken to school.)
(And, three hours later: I'm back!)
Flashback: I am school-aged, and I find a thousand-legger in my shower about once a week. Since I can't even manage to kill it or even drown it myself, I go knock on my mom's bedroom door, and she comes over and murders it with a shoe (usually), and sloshes its still-moving appendages down the drain after rinsing off the bottom of her weapon. If she is not available, I may even resort to covering the thing with a lid or a cup and securely trapping it out of sight for the duration of my shower...and sometimes long after...until its many-legged body becomes a hollow shell of its former freakshow self.
Back to Present: So, the cycle has come full circle at this point. I was reading in my bed while Alyssa was showering in the master bathroom today. She still insists that I be in the adjacent room while she washes, as if she is in danger of drowning in the shower stall at age 7, but alas... Today, I guess it was a good thing I was there because right after she turned off the water, she screamed bloody murder and shot from the bathroom naked and dripping (and screeching). She continued to scream as her wet body soaked the hardwood floor of my bedroom.
"What is wrong? What?!" I said, fearing the worst. Like imminent death.
She sobbed hysterically, and then she managed to spit out, "Thousand-legger!" between hiccups.
Now, I hate those things as much as the next delicate-rose of a lady-person, but this level of hysteria was out of control, even for a thousand-legger. I told Alyssa to get a hold of herself and threw a towel in the general vicinity of her head.
She continued to cry and moan and hiccup and sob and sniffle until she managed to wake up Brooke, too, who joined in with her now all-too-familiar fang-cutting wail. I threatened to send Alyssa to her room for the rest of the morning if she didn't shut her mouth, and she managed to quiet her freak-out down to a dull-roar of post-traumatic sniffles. Brooke fell back asleep.
I knew it was now-or-never for my morning shower. I hated to go into a room known to be currently inhabited by a thousand-legger, but I really needed that shower. I peeked into the door and scanned the room: the thousand-legger was unaccounted for. I assumed that the thing was as traumatized by Alyssa's outlandish terrified behavior as I was and was currently hiding under the bath mat, so I avoided that area and locked myself into the relative safety of the shower stall.
I proceeded to take a nice, hot, uninterrupted shower for the first time in about 7 years. That creepy little multi-legged bug served as my bodyguard. Alyssa came nowhere near the bathroom...let alone the shower. It was fantastic!
I would consider employing the thousand-legger full-time, except s/he honestly still creeps me out big time... and, based on Brooke's uber-agressive behavior toward any stink bug that happens to cross her path, I don't think that my thousand-legger would have a fighting chance against Brooke (she be fierce, though she has but 2 legs).
For now, I am just in awe of the circle of life: years ago, those thousand-leggers prevented me from enjoying a peaceful shower--and prevented my mom from sleeping in--and now, the thousand-legger provided me with the first serene shower of my life post-motherhood. I salute you, thousand-legger...and for now, you are safe, hiding in the corner of the bathroom, right by the hinge of the shower door. Don't think I didn't see you there. Don't think I haven't checked to make sure you were still there a bunch of times so far this morning. Don't think that just because I don't scream like Alyssa that I still don't have the power to stun you into a shocked stupor of stony stillness.
I warn you, however, that when Greg gets home... it's GAME ON!
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