"I will kill you!"

says I, if you are a rather large centipede running around in my living room. Tuesdy, on the other hand, says, "I will sniff you!" if you are a rather large centipede running around the living room. And occasionally paw at you.

For most of the morning, Tuesdy was preoccupied with the wicker basket in the corner of the living room, hopping and jumping around it, trying to crawl in it just to crawl back out again. I figured he had decided to claim the lucky basket as his new fort--much like he had commandeered our mailbox as his clubhouse--and was frustrated with the still current tenants of the basket: Hiinae's weights and exercise equipment. Not noticing anything unusual about this typically bizarre Tuesdy behavior, I paid him no heed and left him to his business while I tended to mine--checking email, making coffee, taking a shower.

Almost an hour later I noticed him still hovering around that basket and decided maybe I should check out what he was up to. There must be more to it than just the basket itself since his attention span isn't generally focused on one thing for this long. And also, its gotta be a bug, or something thats moving, cause cats lose interest in stationary objects like its their job. So preparing myself for a cockroach, and praying its not too large, I approach the basket and peer inside.

Chills ran down my spine when I saw a large centipede about 6 inches winding its way through the weights, trying to avoid Tuesdy's curiosity. I almost cried. My first instinct was to designate this a "man's job," wake Dave, and make him groggily destroy the monster. But my ego quickly dismissed the idea, so I put on my superhero cape, grabbed two magazines, rolled them up, and started removing the weights from the basket while screaming and doing a tribal dance to intimidate my enemy. Tuesdy seemed excited to have a playmate join his game and became even more enthusiastic about sniffing his wiggly friend. Well, the "friend" soon shot out of the basket and began crawling across the living room floor. Still screaming, I wack it repeatedly with my magazines, but the blows do nothing to penetrate the shiny brown armor. Tuesdy continues to excitedly sniff and paw, and twice I accidently hit him on the nose.

Finally I realize this wacking isn't working, so I pin the centipede down and with it securely writhing between my magazine and the floor, I catch my breath and decide what to do. I need a heavier tool than a makeshift-magazine-turned-sledgehammer, and thats when I remember Hiinae's weights. Continuing to pin the centipede down with one magazine, I unroll the other, lay it flat over the animal-monster, and proceed to drop a 10-pound weight over the writhing bug. Three times. I was taking no chances here. There is no way it could survive these fatal blows. And I was right. But what I failed to take into account was the mess such an impact would leave. There were centipede guts EVERYWHERE, in gooey clumps on the carpet and on the magazine with little centipede feet strewn across the floor. I almost threw up.

Tuesdy, not knowing the game was over, continued to sniff, but I took him away before his paw dipped into and spread the disaster.