We have a lot of fears. Some make sense; others, not so much. This latter type will be featured once monthly until we run out of material, at which point, we might begin accepting the fears of our readers. 

On October 20th of the year 2016, I made this comic and accompanying short article about my irrational fear of the common house centipede. I wrote about it and then shivered and flailed for a while, because even the thought of them is enough to send me into fits of terror.

Well, last night as I was on my way to a shower, I nearly stepped on one. I know I should have given you some warning, but it should have given ME warning. It was already dead, that’s why any of this happened, but basically my toes thought I was about to fully step onto a bramble or errant piece of steel wool, so I moved at the last moment, turned on the light, and was met with my worst nightmare. I TOUCHED A HOUSE CENTIPEDE and I will never forget the feeling. R.I.P., left foot. You were a good foot. I had a good life.

However, I think it is important to take away a positive message from my hugely traumatic ordeal that did not result in hours of flailing. As I sat in my room, with the bathroom door closed for the rest of all eternity I thought, I was surprised by how calm I was being. Sure, I scraped my foot on the carpet in order to scrape away the memories, and maybe also the skin because it was now cursed, but I didn’t die on the spot like I always thought would happen. And even though I thought I would have to calmly burn the entire house down and then drown myself in the river — I didn’t do that either. After dramatically speaking of the moment on Facebook and crying all over an unsympathetic cchris in a chat, I got the vacuum cleaner and disposed of the corpse for only five minutes instead of a thousand years.

I am a survivor. And now if I encounter aliens, Mirror Amanda, a shark in my bathtub, or unexpected realities behind closed doors, I feel like I might be able to endure them in a somewhat sane manner.