The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out...

Michael and his dad have undertaken the arduous Project Basement.  When Gampa comes to help Daddy, Oliver's dialogue goes something like this:  "Daddy- Gampa-hammer!  Gampa saw.  Daddy hammer.  I see, too! (then runs to the window to watch them cut wood outside).  Where Daddy go?  Where Gampa go?  Daddy Gampa downstairs.  Daddy hammer."  This dialogue loops roughly 493 times throughout the day, whether we're in the house or not.  Part of me wonders: is it more tedious work to measure and re-measure lumber, or to answer and re-answer a toddler? 

We're all very proud of Daddy and Gampa; more than half of the basement is framed...it's terribly exciting.  Being able to visualize the bedroom, bathroom, exercise room and ManCave as defined by the outlines of walls just about gives me ants in my pants.  But the other thing it brings, in addition to the ants, is millipedes (which for now, thanks goodness, are not in my pants).  I saw one yesterday on our main level, just between the basement and bathroom door.  Michael swooped it up in a wad of paper towels like the BugHero he is.  I dealt with that okay until I noticed a 2-inch black line on our orange-colored living room wall today.  The line was crawling.  Husband, paper towel, better. 

"Hey honey," Michael said to me this evening after a day of basement work.  "Do you want to see what we got done today?"  We put on our shoes and descended downstairs.  After more ants in my pants at seeing the outline of the ManCave area, I saw a millipede.  And then another.  And...another.  Michael, wad of paper towel in hand, walked around picking up the wormy things, and I instructed him to throw them outside, because throwing them in the trash in the basement would just give them a 5-minute delay before crawling out again.  He walked outside and to my absolute horror, I saw one, two, three more, all slithering in different directions in the shadows.  And another!  Every time I turned around, there was another millipede.  And they were bookin' it fast.  I watched as Michael tried to, um, destroy one, and saw both of its two halves continue to slither.  I screamed, literally screamed, and ran upstairs, where I stood frozen.  Because there was one in the entryway.  I began to whimper.  Michael vailantly and calmly took care of the offenders, and I walked to the kitchen.  This has to be a safe zone, I assured myself.  This was the farthest point from the basement door.  No less than a minute later, my safe zone was invaded by another millipede in the mudroom, threatening to cross the threshhold of the kitchen floor.  I ran and jumped up on a dining room chair, half curled in a defensive fetal position, and cried.  Really cried.  "Are you actually crying?" Michael called from the other room.  I cried louder to affirm.  Because seriously, I felt like I was in a bad teenage horror flick.  Visions of "Arachnaphobia", the first "scary movie" I ever saw in my life while eating dill pickle chips at a sleepover in the fifth grade, came creeping back:  the spiders in the popcorn bowl.  The spiders dropping on naked people from shower heads.  The spiders crawling out of the nostrils of dead people.  Shudder.

I did eventually come down off the dining room chair, and put on slippers after carefully shaking them out for stowaways.  All night long I have been seeing flickering shadows, made, no doubt, by freak five-foot millipedes.  I have convinced myself that it's a matter of time before they crawl up to our bedrooms, through the vents, and nestle in between our sheets, or worm their way into our ears while we sleep. 

I'm excited to see the basement, when it's all finished.  Because there's no way in heck I'm going down there ever again before there's carpet and plenty of lighting.