Silverfish

I think I'm like most women, in that I have a problem with bugs. All bugs really, but there are certain bugs in particular that really freak me out. The top of my list is rolly polly and potato bugs. I think they're hands down the most repulsive bugs out there. They look too much like the things in the Wrath of Khan that they stick in the guys ear at the beginning to eat his brain, and even looking at them gives me anxiety. John threw one at me once, and although I sincerely doubt he remembers the incident, I do, and it's not a fond childhood memory. Also on my list are centipedes and earwigs, but thankfully my exposure to them in California has been really limited. Silverfish though...that's a whole different story.

The silverfish I encountered in Utah were so small, and I saw them so infrequently that there's no way they would have made my list of the most repulsive bugs out there. Then I moved to Southern California. Out here the silverfish are enormous, and I've seen a lot of them. Thankfully they don't crunch when you smash them, and I've found that they succumb very quickly to all kinds of household cleaners, including windex. I have had a few very disgusting encounters with silverfish out here. The time one of them crawled out of the binding of my scriptures in the middle of Sunday school was pretty unforgettable, or the time that I found one in my ricecooker, and had to recruit a roommate to come help me address the issue. They move so fast that I couldn't bring myself to risk contact by lifting the little rice pan thing into the sink, to rinse it down the drain. Fortunately my roommate was resourceful enough to use salad tongs to move the pan into the sink for me.

Last night I went to dinner with the girls, and although I decided to refrain from bringing it up at the table, it did remind me of my most memorable incident involving a silverfish, and really one of the most memorable evenings ever, and not because of the John Travolta look alike. We were sitting in a booth with Patty and I on one bench, and Meredith and Wendy on the other. Patty was wearing a v-neck t-shirt, and at some point a good sized silverfish started making it's way across the small exposed portion of her bosoms. I was sitting on the inside next to the wall, oblivious, when Patty felt something, and with those catlike reflexes, in seemingly one motion spotted the silverfish, yelled, flicked it off of her TOWARDS ME, and started sliding out of her seat into the aisle. My reflexes aren't so slow either I guess, because I saw the silverfish land on it's back on the bench next to me, and start writhing around trying to flip itself over, I realized that I was trapped, yelled, and climbed onto the bench. So there's Patty in the aisle shaking out her t-shirt and me standing on my seat in the middle of a restaurant, trying to spot where it went. The John Travolta look alike and his party were staring, and Meredith and Wendy were laughing so hard that they were useless, and offered zero assistance in trying to locate the thing. We were finally able to spot it and end it's life. Understandably Patty was still a bit worked up about the whole thing and had to excuse herself to the restroom where she apparently removed her shirt, bra, and g's, shook them all out redressed and joined us back at the table. Weirdly none of the restaurant staff were around, so the incident went entirely unnoticed by them. We had spent the better part of the day moving, so we figured that the probability that the silverfish came in the door with us was pretty high, and it would be unfair to blame the restaurant.