I am Ceasar. Yes, you should be impressed!

This is a story about a cat and a Centipede.

It’s also a story about the humans made to suffer this cat’s gross obsession with all things squiggly and wiggly and, well, gross.  And to help you understand the story, let us reflect, for a moment, on the perpetrator of this much-hyped tale – Ceasar the Cat.

Ceasar was brought to the Antone household a small and restless kitten.  Full of wonder and showing off a rather impressive gift of “Purrr,” he took one look around his new home and declared it conquered.  He quickly won the hearts and minds of those who lived in his new Kingdom, and took daily pleasure in shopping for treats and treasures down “The Hole” – or, the garbage disposal, as the Humans called it – attacking phantom dust-bunnies, and stalking the bi-ped’s feet… and ankles… and sometimes their thighs.

Considering his committment to all things “Curious” – it is no wonder that on the night of September 14th, 2010, he brought into the house a things so horrid as to elicit a major case of the creepy-crawlies from his two female hand-maids…

You’ve presumably read about my escapade with the centipede in my office, about how I bravely conquered a marauding insect, and then skewered his head above our castle moat as a warding off of future invading monstrosities?  Well, apparently, one of those little maggots didn’t get the message and wandered too close to the perimeter, where Ceasar’s paw, ever on the hunt, pulled it in for some fun.

I was all ready to tuck in for the night, when I decided to grab a few extra tissue for the bunk-down (still battling the cold!)  I opened the door to my bedroom and swallowed a shriek, for there, on the cold stone floor, was said troublesome cat, lording over a very pissed off centipede the size of a twinkie…

Okay, a hot dog…

Actually, exaggerating does nothing to relate the monstrous size of this thing.  Let me just say, it was the biggest centipede I’d ever seen in person; it was like a finger, with legs.   And it had a red “head.”  And at the moment of discovery, it was raised up on like, the last 80 or so of it’s legs, waiving it’s pissed off little front-end and 20 fiery fists at Ceasar as though to say “BACK OFF CATICUS, OR I WILL HYPNOTIZE YOU WITH ALL OF MY WIGGLE APPENDAGES!  YOU WILL BE MINE!”  (I’m paraphrasing)

My first instinct, being the 21st century woman that I am, was to photograph it for posterity (and for you.)  Seeing that this first photograph did NOTHING to convey the actual size, girth, and horror of the bastard, I then sacrificed the well-being of my flip flop to offer you some perspective.

As you can see, the thing is clearly a Size 4 (at least) and that, my fine friends, goes waaaay outside my reasonable risk gauge.

Of course, as soon as I put the flop down, the creep shuffled his creepy little legs at full-speed towards it like a starving man to water. I guess he’s a little shy.  Had I not a gut-wrenching fear of pressing down on the shoe and causing the centipede-explosion that would follow (hello centipide pudding) our tale would end here.  Instead, I took another photo and did the heebee-jeebie dance.

At this point, it must be  mentioned, that Ceasar was quite fed up with my cell-phone camera and pesky “Psst, Psst, SHOO!” routine, and decided to continue with his own evil plans for the bug…  As I whisked it towards the door with the dirty-end of my shoe and a thoroughly wrinkled brow, he ran around and around and around the beast, batting and hopping and basically ruining everything.

Just as I was about to sweep the monster back into the great outdoors, Ceasar stepped in and re-routed the thing towards a crevice in the floor.  This crevice provided just enough space for the insect to hike up it’s numerous legs and slither between the molding and the tile and…

wait.

… and wait.

… and wait.

Meanwhile, I grabbed a flashlight and took up child’s post on the floor next to it; What should I do?  I couldn’t reach it; the envelope corner I was sliding in and out of the crack was doing NOTHING to entice it to come out, and had only served to slice off one of it’s rear feelers/antennae/ICKYthings, and I couldn’t go to bed, because then, eventually, it would COME OUT OF THERE… it would be LOOSE IN THE HOUSE. It would come into my room, hop up into my bed, and crawl around on my skin…. AAAGH!!!!!!!

Somewhere in my completely freaking-the-eff-out about this bug, I must have inadvertently whimpered loud enough to draw my ready-for-sleep mother into the fray.  She came out, made a face at Ceasar, and then did the only sensible thing one can do when wakened by a centipede-in-the-wall scenario; she grabbed the 409 with bleach and sprayed the shit out of that crack.

We waited… we waited… and wouldn’t you know it, that son of a bitch decided it might be time to make a run for it?  Only, he couldn’t run for it, because he was STUCK.

WAAAHHHHH, gross, Eww, eww (*heebie jeebie dance all over the place) GROSS!

What to do, what to do?

Well, folks, you go the for the tweezers.

Obviously.

Now, let me just say that tweezers, when held next to a SIZE 4 centipede, are barely a half-step up from using your fingers; you’re not going to have to actually touch the thing, but you have to get close enough that his wiley front-end could still reach up and grab you if you’re not careful.

You can also sense the squishiness of the its squirmy little body through the metal.  (Cue Heebie-Jeebie dance number 438)

(I must mention that it was my mother, and not I, who did the dirty work of pinching and pulling… pulling and pulling until… the front end of the thing BROKE OFF.)

It went a little something like this “Eww, eww, ugh, God!  Ceasar, you shit-head!  GROSS!  I got it… OH MY GOD!!!” -tweezers and writhing front-end dropped on floor – My brain asking “How is dad NOT hearing all this?!” and then, as mom hopped around in the background, I did the only thing I could think of;  I pressed the flip-flop down on it’s suffering little body… but it didn’t work.

I pressed again…

I pounded it against the beast, but…

It.

Simply.

Would.

NOT.

Die.

Which is when Mom came along, scooted me out of the way, and brought her foot down with a CRUNCH!

And it exploded.

Just like I’d feared it would.

Centipede pudding.

GROSS.

After that, mom set to attacking the back-end, which was still lodged between the floor and the wall.  Miraculously enough, she got it all out.

I, of course, took another picture:

And meanwhile, as we cleaned up the crime scene, Little Ceasar of Much Mischief, licked his little paws in glee, no doubt imagining his next wild-life grab.

(shiver)

Yuck.

Kersplat.