A Field Guide to Giant Mutant Insects of Missouri

[featherynscale]

This entire entry is classified "Asterisk - historical fact."

Last night, after having had an utterly ludicrous conversation with kittenpants and triadruid regarding the nature of MUDs and the use of elephants therein, I wandered downstairs to go to bed at the entirely ungodly hour of 2:30 a.m. And lo, what to my wandering eyes should appear but a Thing that was apparently delivered to my room to be endured as penance for the sins of the previous conversation (those sins mostly being grievous affronts to elephants, in case you're keeping score).

It was an insect, but not any standard issue sort of insect - this was clearly a custom job commissioned for some circle of hell and never paid for by the demon who'd ordered it (demons being notoriously difficult to collect from once the product is in hand).

It was between two and three inches long, tiger-striped, and gifted with antennae and upwards of thirty legs. Not short, wriggly centipede legs, which would have been bad enough, but full-on insectoid legs, skinny and lanky and doubled over at the midsection so that an individual leg of this beast was longer than the beast itself.

It was really this last that bothered me. I will be the first to admit that I am a leg bigot. The more legs you have, the less likely I am to desire your company**. Two is ideal, four is acceptable. Six crosses an undefineable line into hostile territory, but I can still deal with the six-legged creatures. (I am from Florida, after all, where the palmetto bugs grow to the size of your foot, and the mosquitos are large enough to stick a soda straw up your nose and suck out your brains in the Egyptian style.) Eight is right out, and an octoped is likely to be destroyed on sight. Centipedes are the stuff of nightmares. And this thing, this thing didn't even have the decency to be a centipede. It was an Atomic Mutant.

So I did what any reasonable human being would do under the circumstances. I went for backup. kittenpants was already in the bath by the time I wrenched my morbid fascination away from the monster on my ceiling and went back upstairs, so triadruid gamely volunteered to come downstairs and vanquish the menace. "Be careful - it's an Atomic Mutant," I warned him.

So he went forth, and was duly fascinated by the grotesque Thing for a time, after which he declared, "It's not an Atomic Mutant, it's just a bug. It's a really cool-looking bug, in fact." I shook my head sadly. "No," I said, "it's an Atomic Mutant. You'll see."

And then triadruid spoke unto the fiend, saying, "Sorry, man, it's you or her, and she's got better tits." With this inspired battle cry, he valiantly went forth, and squooshed it with a cardboard box. It was at this point that he noticed that some of the legs had become detatched from the body of the monster, and wer proceeding to move about on top of the box, wiggling and bending as if still connected to something with motive force. We stared. We wrinkled our noses. Neither of us spoke.

At last, triadruid shrugged. "I'm sorry," he said, "I was wrong. It was an Atomic Mutant, after all."

** - Note: The correspondence of legs to attitude does not apply to water-dwelling or seaside creatures, for whatever reason. I will happily eat a crab, lobster or crayfish, and am generally interested in these creatures even when alive. Octopi and squid are fascinating, although I suppose that tentacles are in a different class than legs, and should not be considered in the same way.

Comments

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have seen that type in my downstairs area also. I have to admit that I was quite wigged out by it, even after I smushed it.
I have a strict rule in my house: if you have more than 4 legs, stay on your side of the front door; if you cross into my territory I will smash you without a second thought. I will not, however, overtly kill things when they are outside in their territory; that requires an overt hostile act on their part.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

You get these things? What the hell are they? What kind of bug has thirty legs? We had to examine it much more closely than I wanted to in order to determine that it was in fact, one bug, and not like 5 bugs fucking.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

I didn't really want to look at it that closely. Just seeing it wigged me out completely, but your description is very accurate... ICK!

I forgot one caveat to the number of legs rule in my house. It's the number of legs that the creature comes with originally. I told Cory my rule one time when he was bringing a cricket inside. He promptly started removing legs from the cricket (not so good if you're the cricket, I'm guessing). He'll grow up to be a good rules lawyer, he can find the loophole in any rule.

Cory's rules-lawyering

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's awful for the cricket, but it's *really* funny from an outside perspective. How did you manage to keep a straight face?

Re: Cory's rules-lawyering

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, I didn't. However, since he was at the door, and I was up in the living room, there was no harm done.
The next discussion was about how the cricket probably didn't appreciate that.
Pretty soon after that I picked up a bug box. The new rule is that the bugs must stay in the bug box when inside the house. It's worked pretty well up until we hit silk worm season. Those little buggers chew right through the mesh, so it had to be disposed of. (Which reminds me that I need to go pick up something along those lines for the most recent silkworm addition currently languishing in a ziploc bag with some air holes punched in it.)
Ah! The things I'll do for my children...

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

"Sorry, man, it's you or her, and she's got better tits."

Goddamn, but that's good!

I'm *so* using that next time I go into battle!

[teross50.livejournal.com]

To be better than (featherynscale)_ tits would mean U were gazing on a Goddess truely Then in the next instance you would burn Yet I am a bit sad That the Atomic Mutant could not have been captured and retruned to the grasslands Must be the fact I look somewhat like Buddha these days Waistline and such I have been motivated to those beliefs Oh well what is done is done Thought for the next encounter I hope a since of peace has retruned to the bedroom for you my most beautiful friend

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

We thought about sending its crumpled husk to a lab somewhere, attached to a note that read Asterisk - Atomic Mutant. But alas, it was mangled beyond that point. I suppose that still wouldn't satisy your desire to see it returned to its native land, but I am pretty sure that humans couldn't survive in its natural habitat, so maybe it was for the better that we didn't make the attempt.

[teross50.livejournal.com]

Perhaps that is true Perhaps it's true nature had already been corrupted by man Alas returning to pryaers For the enlightenment of mankind One day the dark ones Gop, NRA, KKK,John Birch Promise Keepers, dtc; etc; shall understand the crcle of life is Life :-)
Yes I have ROFL the cat ran away with my mind and he ain't talking

Buddha nature

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in line with chaosdruid on this one; if you're in my house and innocuous, I'll leave you be or shoo you outside. But if you've got the potential *and* the proclivity to bite* inject venom, wound, or wrap the cat in a cocoon, then you have forfeited your essential right to co-exist with this household (vis the wolf spider story from last year). Heck, if this same monstrosity had been crawling around in the garage, I'd have gone the 'coercive' route; but he was in a bedroom, with half a million nooks and crannies.

By the same token, I don't go out in the Atomic Wasteland, or the woods for that matter, and start gnashing my teeth at the wildlife. Flora or fauna.

* Biting is, of course, non-innocuous but acceptable behavior in our household. Unless you're actually trying to bite something off.

Re: Buddha nature

[teross50.livejournal.com]

I knew of this practice For it is the same in mine Dare I admit if the creature had come to my home It would have been a new cat toy or My SO would have been shattering glass with her vocal cords until I recognized she was not doing scale excersises and dealt with the situation and from the bedroom it would have been demanded I with it take the most expediant method LOL May Buddha in his wisdom understand us all :-)

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you're not prejudiced against cephalopods.

This reminds me of an Edward Gorey story, The Insect God.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Mmmm...Gorey. As it turns out, there's a shop in midtown KC called "The Curious Sofa". I am the only one that giggles when we drive by, and that's sad.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Hee! Just this past weekend I gave a live reading of The Curious Sofa from my limited 1st edition, # 83/212.

No need to mention that I had a captive audience.

I knew a girl in San Francisco about ten years ago with a tattoo of the doubtful guest:



...and when I saw it I was so MAD because that was going to be MY tattoo, damn it!

[lightonthesill.livejournal.com]

Did you ever find out what the little beastie was??? (Ewwww)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

No, in fact. We discovered that things that looked like bugs but had more than six legs tend to fall into one of the following categories:
- Spiders (8 legs)
- Harvestmen (Daddy Longlegs, in our part of the country) (10-12 legs)
- Scorpions (10 legs)
- Pseudoscorpions (10 legs)

And that's about all you get. More legs than that, and you're a centipede or millipede, which have short wriggly legs, not long spindly legs.

It was an Atomic Mutant.