And there it was.
Two inches long, solid black, its body thick around as a pencil. Crawling across my kitchen floor. And whatever it was, I had never seen anything like it before.
And I was the adult. My husband wasn't home. I was the one who was going to have to deal with it.
By this time Teen is screaming "Kill it! Kill it!" and standing on a chair. I'm screaming, looking at it. Finally I mustered the courage to approach it with a piece of toilet paper. It had a nipped in waist and a pointed butt. It looked like a giant black wasp. As I was picking it up, I thought - what if it stings me? What if tries to fly away?
It fell to the floor because I wasn't brave enough to hold it tight. No wings.
I finally managed to grab it and ran to the bathroom and flushed. Then I looked in. And there it was - squirming and floating on the surface. Teen, who had come in to ressure self it was gone, started screaming again. "KIll it! Kill it!"
It took three tries to get it to go down. It was like those horror movies where the villain just won't die. Damn those low-flush toilets!
The closest thing I can find to it on the net are photos of velvet ants, which are also known as "cow killers" because their sting can kill a cow. Except it wasn't furry and it was a solid black. If it was a carpenter ant, it was easily two to three times bigger than any carpenter ant I've ever seen.
I'm not sure I can ever be happy in my kitchen again.
