Prepare to die...

I think I am being honest when I say no one, least of all me, expected a follow up on my last blog post this soon. "Give it a week," I thought to myself. "Let the novelty wear off. Better yet, give it another six months." That will give people time get nostalgic and wonder, "Hey, what ever happened to that earwig guy?" (Hopefully no actually thinks of me as "The Earwig Guy." If you do, please stop now.) And yet, today inspiration fell into my lap. Literally into my lap! It was horrifying, of course. With that being said, come with me now, on a journey to a happier time. A simpler time. Come with me, to earlier this afternoon...

Oh, life was so good then. I didn't have to work, and I got to sleep in. A beautiful start to the day, made even better by sitting around and eating a late. ( It was ramen, quick boiled and just slightly al dente. A meal fit for an impoverished and lazy king. Actually, it may be time for me to go food shopping soon...) Be that as it may, the day was only slightly spoiled by running into an earwig as I was washing up afterwords. Sitting behind the sink, complacently eyeing me and no doubt thinking in its earwig-y way "A-ha! Here is an easy target. Fat and happy after a late lunch, he will be an easy target later. The earwig high command will be so pleased. I may even get that promotion to Nuisance First Class!"

Well, I made short work of that line of thought, let me tell you what! Thinking quickly, I grabbed my soap dispenser (no shampoo bottles being handy) and let go with a nice left and plenty of follow-through. The earwig expired on the spot, and I went on my way, the day having been saved and my mood only improved by the quickness and painlessness of the victory. At least, that's what I thought! If that had been all, I wouldn't be sitting here, sharing my exploits with you. 

What I didn't know is that the first earwig had only been a scout, a mere ruse to get get me off my guard!

It was at this point that I retired to my bath, content in the knowledge of a job well done. I had completed my ablutions, toweled off, and was preparing to attire myself, when some hunch - nay, some PREMONITION caused me to look down before putting my foot through my under-drawers. And there, staring up at me from my underwear, was an earwig. Wait, let me repeat that: THERE. WAS. A. FREAKING. EARWIG. STARING AT ME FROM THE DEPTHS OF MY OWN PERSONAL UNDERWEAR!

Needless to say, my emotions were mixed.

I felt Stunned of course, because there was an earwig in my underwear. Loathing, also because there was an earwig in my underwear. Terror, once more because there was an earwig in my underwear. Bewilderment, for the reason stated above.  Sad, because of the same, previously stated, point. But embracing and overarching everything else, like unexpectedly finding out your pillow is a 50 pound slug, was Horror, because (everybody say it with me now) THERE WAS A FREAKING EARWIG IN MY THRICE CURSED UNDERWEAR!

In my previous post I took care to emphasize that while I was forced to squish my earwig adversary beneath the crushing embrace of a shampoo bottle, there were no hard feelings in this encounter. We were enemies, yes, but mixed with that feeling were strains of admiration and, dare I say it? Yes, even companionship. In this encounter, there was nothing of the kind. My reactions were swift, and possibly even a shade heroic. (If there are any single ladies reading this, I want to assure you that my ability to dispose of vermin with a single, steely swipe of my shampoo bottle is second only to the late, great Bruce Lee. I assume this is what all women desire most in a mate, so, uh... sup?)

I started by letting out my own personal version of the rebel yell, which starts low with a series of quick, yelping cries, followed by a gradually ascending warble that increases in timbre until it reaches more of what I would personally describe as a "hellish" volume. This gets me in the mood for battle, and could in no way be described as "girly" or "really, it's just an earwig, will you quit screaming already" by anyone, particularly my roommate. 

My morale taken care of, the next move, as any general will tell, is to confront the enemy on your own terms. I did this by gracefully extending the undergarment in question to arms length and shaking it firmly but gracefully until the earwig in question was deposited upon the bathroom floor. Unfortunately, this gesture resulted in my losing sight of the creature for a moment, which resulted in a moment (only a moment!) of panic. My shampoo bottle, favored weapon and stalwart companion in troubled times, lay across the room in the tub, and my way there was blocked a creature who could probably slice my toe clean off with a single swipe of its crushing pinchers, or at least maybe pinch me slightly and give me the heebie-jeebies. 

But, there! On the bathroom rug! A movement. The enemy is in sight! Now I just have to figure out how to retrieve my erstwhile weapon while maintaining all of my digits intact and un-pinched. Now, keep in mind that in this moment, due to the circumstances of this attack I am still in the raw, as it were, graced only with what God granted me upon my birth and my natural fortitude. 

That made the whole situation somewhat more... Volatile as you can no doubt imagine. Now, I have to face this earwig au naturale, confronting my inner fears and insecurities, as well as the be-pinchered form of my foe. Mano-a-mano, He rushed at me and in that moment, I dug deep. My whole life seemed to flash before my eyes, and I knew what I had to do! I seemed to become one with my primitive ancestors, and just like they did when they were rushed by a bug smaller than their pinky toe, I leaped!

Now was my moment! I had overcome all the odds, and now, my weapon in hand I prepared to meet my foe!

And then with all my force, I brought my weapon to bear and made him a two-dimensional replica of his former self, as imagined by Picasso. It was a glorious moment, and it was only slightly lessened when I remembered that I was completely nude. (I bet you forgot that too. Kind of makes things weird, huh? Try not to think about too much.) Anyways, I think that's what my primitive ancestors would have wanted. In honor of the moment, I have also christened my shampoo bottle "The Vermin-Crusher." It only seems fitting.

Now, though, with my revenge complete, my life has suddenly become full of doubts. Sure, I killed two earwigs today, but surely they were only the outliers. More will come, and my life has become a paranoid dance. I can't bring myself to trust anymore. If there was an earwig hiding in my underwear, where will the next one be? In the tub? (Yes.) Hiding in my shoe? Heaven forbid, in my own bed!? They say Macbeth got pretty paranoid, but all he had to worry about was being assassinated by his friends and having his country turn on him. I mean, it's not like he was in danger of getting a nasty nip on the toe with a pair of disease covered butt-pinchers! I guess I can take comfort in the thought that if my body is found, covered with pinch marks and sans toes, at least no one will question why I am carrying a shampoo bottle covered with earwig corpses.

P.S. If that happens, I request that at least one you come to venge me. Preferably by donning a sweet mask and training for years in remote monasteries with the worlds foremost experts in shampoo bottle-fu.

P.P.S. It turns out there are more good "Princess Bride" Quotes than I have room for in this post, maybe you should just re-watch the movie. I'm going to.

A Viking Funeral

Well, it's been awhile since I wrote about any spiders, but tonight I had an experience that forced me to hit the keyboard again so that I can regale my (mostly hypothetical) audience with more stories about my vermin related shenanigans. And I can imagine you all out there, hanging on my every word and whispering to each other "What hijinks did the spiders get up to this time? I bet it was super crazy, because all of his other stories about spider hijinks are super crazy!" Well, sorry to disappoint all 5 of you, but todays post has nothing to do with spiders.

Of course, if it's not spiders, your next guess is that it was probably an earwig. And you would be correct, as long as you actually guessed earwig. If you didn't, you probably haven't read this blog before, so maybe you should go read my last post. It's ok, I don't mind waiting. I thought the last one was hilarious when I re-read it just now. It made laugh out loud (Like most of my own jokes. At least there's one person who finds me funny.) Anyways, hopefully your back and ready to hear about some earwig tomfoolery.

So today I got home from some super awesome social activities with tons of friends (most likely) and decided to take advantage of my 1st world status by visiting my indoor, climate controlled commode, and (I'm really trying to be delicate here) taking care of certain, necessary bodily functions. Now this is something that I quite enjoy, taking a little break from the cares of the day, thinking about my life and perhaps doing a little light reading (yeah, I'm one of those people.)

Anyways, my porcelain throne is located in such a way that I am right next to the tub when taking care my necessaries. Of course, you can see where this is going. There I am, contemplating the mysteries of life, the universe and everything, when I take a casual glance to my left and see an earwig, moseying around the inside of my tub. Now, this actually isn't that big a deal at this point (Maybe a 3 on my patented vermin alert scale (1=being aware that bugs are everywhere, but not being able to see one at the moment, to 10=Actually being eaten by army ants.)) I am a grown man, and as long I can see it and it's trapped in the safety of the ceramic super bowl, then things are good.

And for a little while, things remain at that pleasant, friendly state. The earwig (we'll call him Max) almost seems friendly, if you ignore the fact that he's a walking plague carrier and has a huge pair of suspicious pinchers on his nethers. I'm just curious about whether or not he can even climb the porcelain. Imagine my chagrin when I find out that yes, he can. Max is a natural born rock/porcelain climber. Once he gets to the top of the tub, he starts heading in my general direction, and things start getting a little tense. (Maybe a 5 on the vermin alert scale (5=There's a bug, and it's headed in your direction))

Now, I tend to be very relaxed (lazy) person around bugs. If they aren't hurting me, then usually we can co-exist in a mutually beneficial manner. However, it happens that when one is making an airstrike on porcelainistan, (as it were) that one is in a very mobility reduced state. This makes for a vulnerable feeling, and I dealt with this feeling by arming myself with a shampoo bottle (one of my favorite bath-time weapons.) Oh yeah, and I also hit Max in the face with said bottle. It turns out I may overreact when encroached on while negotiating the release of the chocolate hostages.

Now, Max dealt with this rather over the top display of hostility in a rather unexpected manner. He literally went and curled up in the corner. Now granted, we are talking about pincher-butted little disease vector, but I must say it kind of disarmed me. I felt little bad. Like, if someone barges in on you while you're assembling Lincoln logs (so to speak) it's embarrassing, sure, but most people don't react by braining the trespasser with a shampoo bottle (as far as I know. I mean, maybe you do. I won't judge, since now I'm a member of that club.) However, at that point I was willing to let bygones be bygones. I even put away the shampoo bottle, and went back to doing some paperwork for Mr. Brown.

At this point though, Max decided he'd had enough. Realizing he was on deaths door, he decided the only way to redeem himself was through Kamikaze, trading his own life for the toe of his adversary (I assume.) At any rate, he came out of his corners, pinchers ablaze and ready to make some trouble. (6 on the vermin alert scale) Let me tell you, seldom has any man grabbed a shampoo bottle quicker. Now it was man versus earwig, eye to compound eye and no holds barred. Max was injured, but I was hampered by my pants being on the floor and having to maintain a constant high-pitched scream. (To keep my morale up. Not because I am in any way intimidated by a creature 1/4 of an inch long.)

And then I struck. A lesser earwig would have curled his legs up and expired, but Max was no ordinary earwig. He shook it off and made a valiant shot at cutting off my toe with his pinchers. I responded by screaming like a little girl and flailing wildly with the shampoo bottle. But one of the blows hit! That should finish him, I thought. But I had underestimated my opponent. Pinchers held high, Max kept coming. Truly, a noble effort. But this time, I took my time. Only whimpering a tiny bit, I aimed and landed a third hit. At last, Max lay still, defeated only by the cunning of his adversary. (Well that, and because I'm like, 1000 times bigger than him. But mostly my cunning.)

Needless to say, such bravery should be rewarded. Max was my enemy, but in the moment of his death he became something more. He became a very flat, unresponsive enemy. I would do for him what I hope my friends would do for me, if I died attacking a total stranger in a bathroom. I scooped him up with the softest kleenex I had, and gently set him afloat, to join his ancestors in the excrement encrusted pipes of their sewer Valhalla. He died the death all earwigs wish: squished on the bottom of a shampoo bottle accompanied by the shrill, dog-deafening screams of his enemies. Rest in peace, you magnificent pincher-butted son of a gun!