The Nightmares of an Insomniac

After seeing a movie and going for late-night food at a diner, my roommates and myself decided to talk until after 2am and share fun things we had found on the internet. Because our lower-level cave is significantly cooler than the main floor, we all sat in a row on the futon in our basement living room. We were excitedly discussing cakes and frosting when we all saw a creepy, long-legged thing (literally) run across the floor in front of us. Following the shrill screams from me and Jackie, we pleaded with Morgan (the self-appointed and fearless live-in spider killer) to kill it. Her complacency toward the situation just made things worse. Probably due to my ghost-white complexion and look of sheer terror, Morgan eventually caved and went hunting with my tennis shoe. But, to no avail. The creature sufficiently hid itself underneath our plethora of DVD's.

It took Jackie a while to calm me down. It helped to know that while venomous, these nasty creatures commonly called the House Centipede cannot penetrate human skin and primarily hunt spiders and other pesky insects. And they only come out at night. But it didn't help make me less paranoid. Jackie continued to spout the virtues of this insect until she ascended the stairs to go to bed and leave me in the basement, alone, with the hidden creature. I talked myself down off of my irrational cliff as I walked into my bathroom until I switched on the light and saw a big, black spider perched right in front of the toilet. That's when I realized that my irrational fear was in fact rational: bugs (both malignant and benign) are everywhere. 

So, here I am, after 3am, sitting on my bed, paranoid that I will see another creature of abnormal speed and proportions (for the record, I did kill the spider in the bathroom, thanks to the emotional support and encouragement from Jackie). How can I have creepy-crawly nightmares when I have yet to fall asleep?? And how can I fall asleep when I am having creepy-crawly nightmares?? I feel this is a vicious cycle. Moral of the story is that no matter how much I love talking to my wonderful roommates, I have to be in bed before midnight so I don't witness the nocturnal creepy-crawling of creatures doing their nightly rounds. 

*PS, I thought about attaching a photo of the bug I saw, but that meant that I would have to look at one, and I wasn't about to put myself through that kind of stress again right now. But if you are really that curious, just Google "House Centipede," and make sure you do it long before bedtime!

On a lighter note, one of the discoveries we made before getting interrupted by bugs is that Costco.com is selling a one-of-a-kind, internally flawless, clearly colorless, 6.2 carat diamond solitaire for 1 million dollars. Say What??!?!?? Yeah, that's right. (For those unfamiliar with this talk, I'm pretty sure a 6 carat stone would be much bigger than my finger!!) Talk about a rock!!! The (un)lucky recipient of that ring will have to do arm workouts for months before preparing her hand to flaunt that chunk of ice. Check out the crazy ring here. But good news; you'd save half a million dollars by buying it through Costco!