A Random Story from My Past

A few nights ago, over a lovely Italian dinner in a quaint little restaurant in Amsterdam, I told this story to a couple of friends. It gave them a chuckle, so I thought I'd share.

My parent's house -- the house I lived in from ages 14 to 18 -- is right next to a cornfield and all manner of creepy crawlies come out of that field, spy this inviting abode right in front of them, and think "Ahhh... what a lovely place. Come, Margaret, let's see if the natives are friendly." (In case you're curious, in my head, Margaret's husband is named Albert.)

The worst of these uninvited houseguests is a bug we've dubbed "thousand leggers." I have absolutely no idea what the real name of this insect is, but here's why they've gotten their nickname: imagine a centipede, but with a slightly skinnier, tan body. Then affix approximately a ba-jillion hair-like legs to that body and -- Voila! -- you have an insect that gives you an intense creepy feeling between your shoulderblades.

These shiver-inducing critters just LOVE my parent's house. They love the living room. They love the kitchen. They love the hallways and the entryway. But their favorite place to assert their squatter's rights is the bathroom. It's not too dark, not too light, not too dry and not too wet. Margaret and Albert think the bathroom is just right. (Though the thousand leggers soon learn that the natives are decidedly not friendly when they appear in my mother's bathtub. She performs her own version of Chinese water torture on those foolish enough to set up camp in her presence.)

The main bathroom in our house has a shower long enough to hang a towel at the end without it getting wet. That towel is known as the "hair towel." Take a wild guess what it's used for.

When I was a teenager, and favored taking 3-hour long showers, my habit was to shut the water off, blindly grab the hair towel, wrap it around my head and step out into the steam-filled bathroom. (To my parent's consternation, I never remembered to turn the fan on.)

One such day, I was beautifying myself post shower, my hair firmly wrapped in the hair towel, when I was constantly being annoyed by a couple of hairs tickling my ear. I didn't think anything of it, but it was bothersome enough for me to occasionally brush my hand against my cheek to remove the offending hairs.

Slather on some body lotion. Tickle tickle... brush at my ear.

File my nails. Tickle tickle... brush at my ear.

Paint my toenails. Tickle tickle... brush at my ear.

Finally, I reached a task in which the fogged-up mirror was needed. I grabbed a towel, wiped away the steam and there ON MY EAR was the mother of all thousand leggers. ON MY EAR. And it had been there, tickling me with it's hideous legs, for a really long time. Long enough that I should've named it Fluffy, given it a leash, and taught it to fetch.

I let out a blood-curdling scream and flung the towel off my head. It smacked against the door and seconds later my mother was at the door yelling "What's wrong!? What's wrong!? Did you fall!? Are you hurt!??"

To this day, some 17 years later, I am STILL traumatized over the "Thousand Legger Incident." When I shower at my parent's house, I gently grab the hair towel, hold it over the edge of the tub and shake it furiously. Then, with a compulsion that borders on OCD, I inspect both sides of it to make sure it's insect free and then, and ONLY THEN, does it go on my head. In fact, the "Thousand Legger Incident" was so traumatic to the Daley household that even my mother goes through the same ritual after her shower.