Last night, Raegan opened the door to the dark basement to make sure all lights were off. She immediately heard a scuttle, a quick ticking sort of sound and turned the lights on to see what it was. And there, on the ceiling of the staircase, was without a doubt the largest centipede I have ever seen in my life, including TV and movies. I mean, this thing was like 8 inches long and four inches wide. Antennae shot from it in all directions. The thing was, like, furry.

I wish I had had time to take a picture, but it all happened so fast.

Raegan said, "Holy crap. That thing is prehistoric!" As indeed it was.

When the light came on it made a dash for darkness. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the first thing handy — a bottle of Multi-surface Windex. I didn't have time to check whether or not 'Centipede' was one of the surfaces listed on the bottle, nor did I much care. I showered the centipede with twelve sound blasts. He seemed stunned but on the whole uninjured. Intoxicated, if you will. Raegan yelled at me to be a man and get a paper towel and squish the thing but by then I was unable to move. A great fear gripped hold of me. I was afraid for my life. A newspaper, I reasoned. With a newspaper I could hopefully slap the thing to death and still remain a safe distance away.

"Get me a newspaper!"
"Are you crazy?"
"A magazine, then!!"
"You'll make a big mess. There'll be guts everywhere. I can't stand guts everywhere. Here. Use this paper towel!"
"No way. That thing'll gnaw right through that paper towel and take a big chunk out of my hand! Look at it up there. Looking at us. I think it's smiling."
"You are crazy. I'll kill it. For Pete's sake, what are you going to do when we have kids?"
"Simple. Let them kill the centipedes. Problem solved."
"You're always thinking, aren't you?"