Tonight was the craziest night since I moved into my apartment. I invited a stranger into my apartment – to kill a 2-inch long millipede I spotted on the living room wall above the couch. Insane. While on the phone with June, I began hyperventilating and going through a series of suicidal cries and half-screaming complaints that consisted of “This is not happening to me – I’m going to die – I don’t know what to do tonight.” He suggested I knock on a neighbor’s door to get help – that serious. “If you let it go, it’s going to roam free forever and crawl alloveryou; you need to get help,” said he, an avid bug-lover like me.

So after some attempts to chase down the garbage collectors who pick up the neighborhood trash from 8-10PM, I decided my attempts to wander shamelessly for blocks wouldn’t get me any help. They moved too fast and were too far away to grab a hold of. I resorted to knocking on the door of my next-door neighbor who lived directly next to me (Apt A). Their lights were on. I knocked on the door, and a somewhat young-middle-aged man opened his door. Relatively medium-sized, the guy stood around 5’10” feet tall and donned a faded blue U of Texas Longhorns sports teeshirt. A definite sports fanatic with gentle blue eyes, red face, and a southern drawl. “Are you good at killing bugs?” I asked him, with my boyfriend on the phone for safety precautions. “Hmm,” he said with a look of defeat. He hesitated at responding but after I explained the situation in animated terms like “I think I might get a heart attack, honestly,” he agreed to help me out, probably from fear that I might pass out on at his doorway. After asking two questions, he brought over a broom and pan and got to work. He admitted he was afraid of bugs and planned to dust it and throw it outside.

Once inside, he politely removed his sneakers and walked over to the wall where the monstrosity sat like a fat sloth, not having moved a millimeter. It eventually scurried away from his broom. He tried to catch it onto the pan and threw the bug outside on the patio lawn. But to my dismay – this is where it gets icky – another part of the millipede had fallen from the wall. The neighbor pulled the couch away from the wall and began trying to broom the damned thing. I was giving the play-by-play the whole time on the phone and simultaneously in conversation with the man (“Richard”) who eventually resigned to the conclusion that the millipede crawled inside the vent. “You mean to say that it’s still alive?” “Yeah.” Basically, a part of the millipede had detached from the organism itself – and that’s the part the man through outside with his broom pan. The other half? “It returned to where it came from.” *Shivers*

He kindly suggested I call the insect control maintenance and have them spray a repellant against the edge of the wall and the air vent and also pointed all possible areas of entry. I was unbelievably thankful, and unbelievably freaked out beyond words. I bid him adieu. And that was my insane night fighting off a millipede with the help of a complete stranger.