6 October 2007

The Mother of Forty-Four

So i'm slumped infront of the couch watching TV late last night, when I hear a terrifying scream coming from the kitchen; I get up to see what was going on, and it turns out my wife had spotted an insect that managed to help her scream her lungs out.

Now i'll have to say, my wife is pretty brave in general, but when it comes to little bugs and creepy-crawlies (and mice), nothing can make her forget everything she's doing and run screaming.

So what was this little bug? It was a worm-like creature we traditionally call ام اربعة و اربعين, literally translating into "the mother of forty-four" (as in relation to the number of legs it has). Now me being the man of the house, went ahead to kill it as I do all bugs that manage to appear out of nowhere, when my wife started screaming again "DOOONNNNTTT! THAT THING CAN KILL YOUUUUU!"

I stopped. Dammit. I do remember being told as a child that these "mothers of forty-four" are actually pretty poisonous, and to be careful of them, but as I grew older I sort of dismissed that as some sort of urban legend. Were they poisonous, though?

So here I am, a little under a meter away from the killer mother; I stare at her, she stares me back. Well, she doesn't actually, she just sits there, wiggles once every few seconds, and I wonder if the next few minutes will be the last moments of my life, in combat with the little beast.

I think quickly, and notice a huge glass in the cupboard right behind killer momma. I make a quick move for it; in the background, the chilling screams coming from my wife fill the room. As I jump towards the glass, the mother wriggles more and prepares to stand, while suddely everything seems to run in slow motion; the colors fade into black and white as I grab the glass, and balance myself to avoid being poisoned by the venomous monster. Enter background music; heavy metal. She doesn't just sit there, though, she lifts herself up on half of her legs, stands up, about to attack; we were in full combat mode now, it was just me and her, looking each other eye to eye, waiting for the first person to make a move. With a quick move of dexterity and skill I slide forward and land the glass on top of her, turn it upside down, scooping her up as she squirms trying to escape the glass prison while spewing her toxic venom everywhere. I grab the nearest tissue box and cover the top of the glass.

Phew. She's trapped now. Everything turns from black and white into color again as I realize its finally safe, and the heavy metal background music fades away. Little did I realize this whole process took a little under 5 seconds; felt like an hour. How time freezes when you're so close to losing your life.




Anyhow, I manage to take the offender out to the garden, and Pif-Paf the hell out of her. She squirms and wriggles, as if trying to resist, clinging on to her soul, but alas, she finally stopped moving.

Mission Over. Finally.

Anyway, doing a little research afterwards leads me to the conclusion that the little monster was, infact, a centipede. Only one case of death has ever been recorded, and that was by a large centipede biting a young child; otherwise, their bites can result in a reasonably painful rash.

Dammit. So much for my near-death experience.

40 comments:

iMaha said...

LOOOOOOOOOL! funny story :D
Why pif paffed it? you could have left it out in the garden! Maskeena

June said...

Hahahahaha! Love this. Don't they crawl into your ear or something and that's when it gets dangerous? You brave thing. I am impressed by your chivalry and heroism.

Anonymous said...

LOL XD cool narration, enjoyed it!

Anonymous said...

It's too big and too scary .. yommmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaah!

In similar cases with such insects I would prefere using fast hitting with "en3al", no matter how dirty that would be but it's a fast guaranteed killing.

Anonymous said...

ahahahahahahaha I lost it when you wrote "enter backgroud music: heavy metal" LOL this was hilarious! not poisonous? what about those drops of liquid around it on the glass surface???? this beast looks pretty lethal to me..

Anonymous said...

Oh my god!
that is scary. kill it!

Desert Bloom said...

LOOOL yabeelah 7alqa in freej of something :D

bas zain sawaait and look for eggs! these things leave millions of eggs tara

C'est la vie!! said...

that was so funny!!! :D

Anonymous said...

That's when Zanooba becomes handy :p

Ammaro said...

Diva; Leave it out in the garden? Are you nuts? That things a killer! (Well, I thought so anyway)

June; I am brave and chivalrous, aren't I.


Moonlight; I'm glad me almost dying amuses you!

Ebtihal; Big? That thing was a little under 5cm long. If you want to see big, search YouTube for BIG CENTIPEDE. Now there are some huge muthas out there.

So Be It; I could swear I heard the music in the background

Blue Dress; I did, I did!

Desert Bloom; Oh no... Now you're freaking me out!

C'est La Vie; You think me almost dying is funny?! You guys have a wierd sense of humor

Mohd Issa; And ruin a perfectly good zanooba?! No thanks!

KJ said...

Oh man that was brilliantly narrated and awesome! LOOOL

You reminded me of a similar encounter, which you can read here: http://jarofjuice.blogspot.com/2007/06/crispy-rationale.html

Islander said...

wuts up with every1 and posting creepy bug stories lately??

is the world under attack or something?

Redbelt said...

Well done.
But that is the begging.
Just like a good JRPG, when you start fighting slime and cats and end up saving the world, you have raised your EXP by killing.. this.

Now equip your armor and erm.. pif paff and lets take an adventure in my freej. y'know, to level up ya3ni.

CG said...

My friend was bitten by one of those things, and her ankle swelled up to the size of a watermelon and went a beautiful shade of purple. It stayed like that for 2 weeks. She was in agony to say the least.

I say BRAVO for killing it. Your wife owes you MEGA BIG TIME...hehe

Anonymous said...

lol ! we used to have them falling on our heads back in the days at grandmothers house, in the hot summer they would fall of the tile cieling , could give a very painful rash for days if bitten ..

Anonymous said...

lol ! we used to have them falling on our heads back in the days at grandmothers house, in the hot summer they would fall of the tile cieling , could give a very painful rash for days if bitten ..

Anonymous said...

lol ! we used to have them falling on our heads back in the days at grandmothers house, in the hot summer they would fall of the tile cieling , could give a very painful rash for days if bitten ..

Anonymous said...

Please delete two comments including this one ... thanks ... i look like a fool

Anonymous said...

sounds like a contender for the "best husband blog"!

Good luck in your endevours!

Dr. Shale bin Agnon said...

Ugh... killer insects. It is almost worth putting up with the constant rain to have none.

Pretty funny though...

Anonymous said...

that's something we don't see every day :p !

p.s: { are you married ? }

Anonymous said...

isnt it easier to step on it and return to the couch

Anonymous said...

Genocide or what!! Did you really need to pif-paf the mother?

Um Naief said...

this is a good story. you shouldn't have killed it though.. but hey, it could have come in again and stung you or something... imagine... or maybe it would have crawled in your ear! ;)

you're a brave man though. when it comes down to the final days, we'll know who to call. :)

i didn't even know these things were in bahrain. funny and weird thing.. we were just talking about "mother of 44" tonight at iftar. i didn't even know what that was... weird that you have a post about it.

hey.. i heard that your wife is american. is that true?

eshda3wa said...

oh my god!
i would have left the house
moved out and just let her live in it!

Manutdfanatic said...

That thing looks FATAL!

I don't blame your wife, you know. I would've done the same, if not worse. Lol.

Ammaro said...

kj; cool, im not the only one here who fights insects then

sunshine; feels like a cheap 80's horror movie, doesnt it.

redbelt; dude, it was just a bug. dont exaggerate (oh yeah, like i didnt exaggerate the whole post)

CG; watermelon? damn. beautiful shade of purple? interesting. and yes, she does owe me big time :p

grey; falling from the ceiling? wow, thats kinda freaky. and no, ill leave the posts there. they look funny :p

joel; best husband? hardly. endavours? what, like bug squishing?

shale; ill have the bugs over the constant rain, thanks.

maitham; umm, well, considering I mentioned my wife, I probably am, huh?

lizardo; not really. it was on the table, not that easy to step on there.

Capt; genocide is only when im killing hundreds of the little ones. this was just a regular murder.

umnaief; yep, im the one to call. i charge per hour, by the way. eeeem no my wife isnt american, but she worked in the US for a while. Where'd you hear that, anyway?

eshda3wa; eshda3wa?!!? never! its either me or her!

manutd; do you women share some DNA with chicken, or something?

Reem B. said...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH *faint* <--- this would have been me!

I JUST HATE um-arba3a-warba3eeens! I mean even the name is scarier than "3agrab" !!

Shionge said...

Oh what a fight! You are the HERO :D

Anonymous said...

What my brother-in-law got from it was not a simple painful rash! Now my 31 year old enjoys putting them on fire in his bathroom sink, and watch them burn to death! You think it’s sick, but when you get rushed to hospital 3 times because a big one bit you and suffer from fever and real bad pains for days after! You won’t think it’s sick anymore!

Anonymous said...

My wife deals with most insect/bug/lizard type of attacks at home. I'm the first one to jump up and run for the PIF PAF, but I'll admit I'm a wimp when it comes to these things. Thank goodness she's totally cool with handling those little bastards.

Anonymous said...

you ever hear the joke of the ant that married um-arbaeen?
:)

i*maginate said...

Well, I guess I'm the only one who doesn't find this episode funny!

Your wife screaming for your life...you thinking it could be the end of your life...

Whatever that thing was, thank goodness you had some Pif Paf to hand :)

Bless ya

Anonymous said...

dah !

i kno !

im just surprised !

Um Naief said...

well... i heard it thru a friend, just outta the blue. we were talking about bloggers, and since i'm an american married to a bahraini, she told me that your wife was an american.

isn't it weird how things get twisted. you know, i've always hated that... ppl saying things when they don't know the facts. but.. at least it was harmless. :)

Ammaro said...

can3rian; the name isnt that scary :p the fact that theyre venomous, is.

shionge; waaaaaah! iM THE KING! WAAAAAH

nora; ouch. but yes, i guess i understand

samster; lol! dude, stand up and fight!

capt; eem... no.. englighten me

imaginate; thank you! everyone else finds it funny that i almost died! but hey, its a happy ending right?

maitham; is it that suprising?

ummnaief; whose your friend?

Um Naief said...

it was all innocent. it's nice to know there's a commonality w/ other bloggers, that's why i was interested, but this was a mix-up.

there are a lot of bahrainis married to americans... and british, etc.

sorry for the mistake. :)

Anonymous said...

hi, i am from germany, living at the moment for 5 month in amman, jordan! yesterday i found also a big mother of forty four in our living room, in front of the window in the curtain! it looked almost like yours, but it was bigger and had yellow an black stripes an red eyes! it was horrible!!
thank god that the neighbor killed it with a mop!
my jordanian friends told me, that it is poisoned and that it lives normally in the desert, and not in the city!!!
now i wanted to get some information in the web about it, but i "just" found your blog!
but it was relly fun to read it, and i really felt like you did!
thank you

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Anonymous said...

well guys I really think it's not poisonous
i found the same one thrice as big yesterday on my kitchen and it was black with green legs eeeuw