The Lepismatador
I saw it near the ceiling, the harmless yet dreaded lepismatidae. Must have heard from the cockroach, tobacco beetle, gnat colony, and bedbug that I am a lousy shot.
Eyeing the silverfish, I waved my sandal and told him frankly that I wanted him to come down so I could give him an ass whupping the likes of which he had never seen. He had sought the protection of the cable pipe near the ceiling, but his visible antenna poked a wee Morse code into the air:
e a t m e
Then, I was hit by a thunderbolt of genius. The scythe!
After all, I've now had a little practice. Not only that, I reasoned, but how different could this be from picking up a single grain of rice with chopsticks?
I bore down on him like Ujio from The Last Samurai. If all went according to intention, the little interloper would not have time before his skewering to point out that Ujio would have been on horseback, wearing a horned helmet and yelling something bloodcurdling in medieval Japanese. Channeling Ujio, I opened my mouth to voice something I had heard in a rap video.
Oops. My charge became a stagger as I put on brakes, realizing both that it was 1 a.m. and all-out warfare might be disturbing to the neighbors below, and also realizing that without Ujio's horned helmet, I ran the risk of inadvertently flipping my adversary into my hair with the weirdly curved scythe blade.
Couldn't risk it. Now what?
Aha. Waving at me enthusiastically, my leaf rake got my attention from the Rubbermaid yard tool caddy in the corner.
Mindful that we were within ten minutes of more than a half dozen universities and a lot of residents in my building have an advanced education, I asked the doomed creature if he was aware of any statutory rake laws that might give him recourse.
He knew I was playing him. More braggadocio from the exposed antenna . . .
Now battle ready in a shower cap and goggles from the tackle box I use as a tool kit, I used the rake's menacing tines to chase the invader to a point where, likely cut off by accumulated paint, he made a run for open wall space.
His last stand is marked by an elegant fan of upside-down L's from the rake's accumulated grime.
Catching my breath after the kill, I allowed my sense of propriety to assert itself. I grabbed a paper towel and delivered a brief battlefield eulogy for the fallen arthropod:
"So long, you little bastard."
Eyeing the silverfish, I waved my sandal and told him frankly that I wanted him to come down so I could give him an ass whupping the likes of which he had never seen. He had sought the protection of the cable pipe near the ceiling, but his visible antenna poked a wee Morse code into the air:
e a t m e
Then, I was hit by a thunderbolt of genius. The scythe!
After all, I've now had a little practice. Not only that, I reasoned, but how different could this be from picking up a single grain of rice with chopsticks?
I bore down on him like Ujio from The Last Samurai. If all went according to intention, the little interloper would not have time before his skewering to point out that Ujio would have been on horseback, wearing a horned helmet and yelling something bloodcurdling in medieval Japanese. Channeling Ujio, I opened my mouth to voice something I had heard in a rap video.
Oops. My charge became a stagger as I put on brakes, realizing both that it was 1 a.m. and all-out warfare might be disturbing to the neighbors below, and also realizing that without Ujio's horned helmet, I ran the risk of inadvertently flipping my adversary into my hair with the weirdly curved scythe blade.
Couldn't risk it. Now what?
Aha. Waving at me enthusiastically, my leaf rake got my attention from the Rubbermaid yard tool caddy in the corner.
Mindful that we were within ten minutes of more than a half dozen universities and a lot of residents in my building have an advanced education, I asked the doomed creature if he was aware of any statutory rake laws that might give him recourse.
He knew I was playing him. More braggadocio from the exposed antenna . . .
Now battle ready in a shower cap and goggles from the tackle box I use as a tool kit, I used the rake's menacing tines to chase the invader to a point where, likely cut off by accumulated paint, he made a run for open wall space.
His last stand is marked by an elegant fan of upside-down L's from the rake's accumulated grime.
Catching my breath after the kill, I allowed my sense of propriety to assert itself. I grabbed a paper towel and delivered a brief battlefield eulogy for the fallen arthropod:
"So long, you little bastard."
posted by Exxuendo at 8:10 AM
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