I spend Thursday afternoons in the newsroom finalizing the paper and uploading stories to the paper’s website. Usually, I’m the last one in the newsroom for the day, and I just hang out and do some work because we have a couch (courtesy of my grandmother’s old living room) and who doesn’t love comfy couches?
Often, my friend Raevin who doesn’t work on the paper will come down and hang out on these cushions that we have just chillen on the floor in a couch-like formation. Today, she jumped up from the cushions and screamed, causing me to scream “What the fuck!?” because it startled me.
She jumps on this super unstable chair nearby, almost falls off, and screams “THERE’S A GIANT BUG. OHMYGOD, HANNAH. KILL IT!!!!!!”
So naturally, I go to investigate.
There was in fact a giant fucking bug—a centipede to be exact. It was the size of my goddamn face and had an unnecessary amount of legs.
This fucker was huge. Thick body, long legs—ya know, everything media says men want in women. This thing had huge antennas or feelers or whatever they’re called when they’re on a mammoth centipede.
Not wanting to get centipede guts on the bottom of my combat boots, I ripped off some cardboard from a nearby box from the 32-pack of chips the editors all scarfed down the night before and tried to put the cardboard over the centipede and step on it. The little shit escaped.
Now, in the middle of me leaning underneath the big teacher-like desk the centipede was under and swearing at the escaping bug and Raevin on the chair looking down, a random boy walks in, looks around and walks out. (That’s been happening a lot lately because our newsroom was moved to where a computer lab used to be, so people think they can come in and print things out.)
I noticed him walk out, and my immediate reaction was to yell, “Hey! You’re a boy!”
Surprisingly, he stopped and walked back. He looked confused, a natural reaction to someone yelling your gender at you for no reason.
“Do you want to kill a bug for us?”
This kid, without even questioning, walked over. We pointed out the bug, and without saying anything, he took the cardboard from me, squished it and then scrapped the centipede guts off the floor.
We said thanks. He laughed and said “anytime” and then walked out.
I have no friggin idea who this kid is, but I appreciate him.
My life is a series of awkward events.
-HRG
sittinginspiltink.com 