The following post first appeared on Sheylara.com on September 29, 2005.

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This morning, I woke up with a crazy need to answer the phone call of one Madam Nature. It was 6 am and dark as I groped my way to the bathroom.

As I turned the light on and entered the bathroom, I was frozen by the sight of a long, brown thing wriggling in the toilet bowl.

No, it wasn’t a piece of waste. It was alive! It was a giant freaking worm taking a leisurely swim in my toilet bowl.

At first, I thought I was still dreaming. And then I thought maybe someone had taken a dump earlier and forgotten to flush, and that someone had better see a doctor, pronto.

As it slowly became apparent that I wasn’t dreaming, I also realised that my visitor was no ordinary worm. It was a centipede. It was about 10 or 12 cm long and looked like it was enjoying its swim very much. Damn!

I stared at it a while longer in horrified masochistic fashion before beating it to the next nearest continent.

I woke the Goonfather up.

“Wake up! Wake up!! There’s a giant centipede in the toilet bowl!”

“Mmmh… hmmm. Zzzzz.”

“There’s a giant centipede in the toilet bowl!!”

“Ogg… ogay. Zzz.”

“Weiiiiiiiiii!!!”

“Hurrrm? Mmm… flush’way.”

“But WHY IS THERE A GIANT CENTIPEDE IN THE TOILET BOWL??!”

Faced with my persistent encouragement, the Goonfather had no choice but to yank himself out of bed and make an excursion to the bathroom.

I didn’t think I could handle the trauma of seeing the centipede again (my skin crawls even when I see photos of centipedes) so I watched from the relative safety of my bed as the Goonfather stared at the wriggling culprit in wonder before flushing it away. He then took a piss.

I hope the centipede dies from the toxicity of the Goonfather’s pee.

I know centipedes are probably innocent but that doesn’t make them harmless nor give them any business to appear in my toilet bowl in the middle of the night!!

The Goonfather later told me that it’s common for centipedes to show up at toilet bowls.

What?!?

He also said because they live in our sewers and have to survive on our daily offerings, they are probably gimped and weak, so I shouldn’t be too concerned about having a giant centipede chew out my behind while I’m taking a dump.

What?!?

Men have no concept of fear. No respect for danger!!

I told him it’s not common at all because I’ve never seen a centipede in any bathroom, except maybe in the movies. I have read in the papers about a python appearing in some poor guy’s bathroom, though.

I suppose that should have been more traumatising than my encounter since the python guy couldn’t simply flush his python back into the sewers.

But who cares about that? I had a centipede visit my toilet bowl!

Damn.