That's right. I said it. Earth Hour can suck it. My lights are staying on. Here's why.
Hold on a second ... before you begin reading this, go grab a coffee or a cocoa, some nice comfy p'jamas and settle in for a long, heartwarming story. There will be love, betrayal and even a chase scene! We're talkin' real Hollywood stuff here.
This is all about Earth Hour. An event, observed for the first time in 2007 in Australia. . The event is tomorrow night as a matter of fact.
Every year since then, between 8:30 and 9:30 in the evening, people have been encouraged to show their undying love for Mother Earth by turning their lights off for one hour.
And that is exactly what I did several years ago for our big bulbous globe. I turned every single light off in my house ... for 45 minutes. 15 minutes less than the amount I was supposed to. More on that technicality later.
I did this, even though I didn't have any children tugging at my skirt threatening to tell their teacher on me if I didn't. I did this because I wanted to do what I could for the greater cause.
I wanted to take a part in a candle lit global revolution. I wanted to feel like I was in a Police video circa 1983.
Also, this was something that could make me feel more highly evolved than all of my light burning neighbours, so that seemed like fun.
Earth Hour
Let me set the scene for you. The year was 2008 and the very first global Earth Hour was about to take place.
It was neither a dark nor stormy night.
This is an accurate account of how Earth Hour played out on the evening of March 29th 2008 in a small brick cottage in a small town in Ontario, Canada.
As the Earth hour festivities got underway I took a walk around the neighbourhood to see how few people were taking part. I expected to see lights blazing from every window. Maybe even someone with their furnace running while all their windows and doors were wide open. Or powering their electric toothbrushes with a Hummer.
Something to help me feel smug as I contemplated my own house swathed in darkness a block behind me.
But no.
It seemed I wasn't any more enlightened than everyone around me. The streets were dark as pretty much everyone observed Earth Hour. That was disappointing for me. What I was most hoping to accomplish with Earth Hour was an ego boost.
Even that guy a few doors down who never misses an opportunity to tell me that "recycling is for suckers" had his lights off. Of course, he could have just retired early under a blanket of beer cans while watching a Monster Garage marathon.
I got home and fumbled through the dark into my living room. I thought, it felt good to be taking just one measly little hour of my life to help the world, as I started a fire in the fireplace. And it wasn't just me ... it was the whole world taking part to help save the planet.
It was like we were all giving Mother Earth a great big, green hug. The kind you'd get on St. Patrick's Day from a large, wobbly stranger but without the fear of being vomited on. I sat down by the glow of the fire and admired my neighbours dark windows.
I was already resolving to do this Earth Hour thing every year for the rest of my life. Even if it was inexplicably cancelled in the future - because of people burning their houses down from lighting candles, for instance - I was gonna do it.
I love feeling like it's the olden days, so this "turn off the lights" thing was perfect for me. It made me feel like Laura Ingalls.
For some reason I got up to do something - maybe look for my pinafore - when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Of course, being pitch black in the house I couldn't see what it was. So I felt my way to the closet, running my hands along the walls for guidance, so I could grab a flashlight. There were 15 minutes left in Earth Hour; I didn't want to turn on a light for fear of being ridiculed by my neighbours.
As I knew I would ridicule them.
I made my way back to where I was and aimed the flash light in the general direction of where I saw something. It was around the tablecloth in my centre hall. I flicked the overhead light on and immediately felt nausea that went from the tip of my head right down to my toes. You know that feeling when you almost fall down the stairs and your feet start to tingle from the fear and then you have an actual stroke, followed by a heart attack and then an aneurysm?
I had that.
There were CENTIPEDES crawling up my floor length table cloth. Lots of them. I ran to the nearest switch and turned on a blaze of lights. There were centipedes everywhere. They were crawling up the inside and the outside of my tablecloth, they were on my stairs and making their way up the walls. The same walls I ran my hands all over making my way to the closet.
I really felt kind of ill now. My heart was pounding and my brain recognized this as a time my face should squinch up into the "Oh my God, I see a bug look" but my brain just couldn't cope with the overload so it froze, in a sort of ghastly version of the Home Alone kid before turning itself inside out.
I don't know if there's been any scientific documentation of pulling a nose muscle, but I did it that night.
Turning all the lights off for an hour wasn't only an event for me. It became a full-on festival of fun for the centipede army living in my walls. And they came out to party like it was 1999. I distinctly saw one of them was wearing a little purple satin coat.
And just like that I despised Mother Earth. I sunk to my knees, shook my fist at the sky and howled WHYYYYYYYY?????. I can be very dramatic when given the chance. I couldn't believe after all my work, all my effort she had done this to me. Betrayed me in this way. Because it was HER ... it was SHE who created these little monsters that were crawling all over my home (and they weren't the Lady Gaga little monsters). THEM I would have accepted with open arms.
Now, I love every animal ever made. Except centipedes. Centipedes are the Devil's phlegm and should be sprayed with the most lethal thing you have in a can.
Which this night was hairspray.
With every light on in the house I ran around spraying every centipede I could, which wasn't very many because they're quite a fast moving bug, the centipede. If they ever did decide to go the Lady Gaga monster route they'd make quite a group of dancers.
I'm sure this was quite a site for the neighbours. All of the street darkness with my house lit up like it was on fire offering a perfect view of The Scream running around with a can of hairspray, convulsing, jumping and screaming like a lunatic.
After an hour I had gone through 2 cans of hairspray, the remnants of a can of Raid and all of the pills that might act as some sort of tranquilizer - which at the time turned out to be out half a bottle of chewable Gaviscon.
Every object in my house was held in place with maximum hold, letting off the sickly stench of a hair salon fogged with death chemicals.
For the most part the centipedes had just craned their necks around, looked at me and scurried into a crack to further their party back home. I couldn't sleep for days. Obviously something had to be done.
The next weekend saw the arrival of the Great Centipede Purge of 2008. I threw out, cleaned, and sprayed my 170 year old basement with the most lethal chemicals I could find. Cans that had pictures of skulls, crossbones and upside down bugs with legs sticking straight up in the air on them.
I think you'll be surprised to find out that I do still celebrate Earth Hour. One can't be completely selfish.
I mean, sure she created centipedes but Mother Earth is also responsible for the pretty trees and flowers around in the springtime. And the butterflies I help raise every summer. Butterflies! Now there's a group of friendly, sensible bugs who would never even think of house squatting let alone having a party.
So yes, I still celebrate Earth Hour. And I still turn all my lights off. I just do it in my own special way.
From 2 to 3 in the afternoon.
I adore your blog! You are proof of what I've believed all along: Tough, spirited women are still tough, strong and brave ... even if we SQUEEEEEE and run at the site of bugs like these.
LMAO
I usually don't make comments on anything,anytime,anywhere. But this was too freaking hilarious.
another suggestion for those who don't have to worry about a pet ..
rat poison is the only thing that works..
don't spray the chems ..
use the small packets of rat poison ..
put near a spot where you think the bugs enter/exit ..
especially storage or other dark spots ...
it's no work at all ..
no inhaling fumes ..no freakin out ..
the bugs will actually rip the paper packet apart so you will know for sure if they ingested it ...
works for all bugs ...
good luck everybody ...LOL
have xperienced centipedes , the monster bugs in florida (yes you can REALLY hear them , they have thighs) ...tarantulas , scorpions etc . ...
the worst of all is the palmetto giant cockroachs in florida but centipedes are terrible too especially in those numbers ..
my reason for posting is to back up another comment about wood ..
all kinds of creatures (some very dangerous) hide in wood & if you keep ANY in the house there is a good chance you may find yourself greeting a scorpion or worse ....
an old friend has just died from spider bite ...
so the wood in the house is a no -no ..
looks gorgeous stacked in fotos but it ain't the reality ..
if you need to have starter handy , why not try some pine cones instead & they look nice piled in a basket near the fireplace ..
can be dipped in old candle wax ..
very handy ..
this article gave me heart palpitations LOL
terrible fear of bugs ..ahahaaa
nothing like confronting ones fears !
keep the wood outside !
Anything crawling around in my house that should be outside gets sprayed with bug killer, or swatted with a fly swatter, or if it is just plain too disgusting, vacumed up. Another alternative is to have my husband come kill any bug I find. He's good at that. I had to turn my head away from the centipede photos... I spied one scurrying across my floor one night--I almost puked, but got to the vacume in time and saved the night.
Joy - I have centipedes again. :( This house is too old, the weather is too humid and there's nothing I can do about it. Other than SPRAY. Which I've done. Which I will post about next week or the week after! Stupid, stupid gross centipedes. ~ karen
You may need to get a dehumidifier for your basement.
Centipedes prefer to live in damp portions of basements, closets, bathrooms, unexcavated areas under the house and beneath the bark of firewood stored indoors. They do not come up through the drain pipes. Centipedes require moist habitats. If they are plentiful, there may be an underlying moisture problem that should be corrected.
House centipede control consists of drying up and cleaning, as much as possible, the areas that serve as habitat and food source for centipedes. Residual insecticides can be applied to usual hiding places such as crawl spaces, dark corners in basements, baseboard cracks and crevices, openings in concrete slabs, under shelves, around stored boxes, and so forth.
SamiJ - My house is 180 years old with a rubble basement. There isn't much that doesn't like to live down there. :) We do have and run a dehumidifier all spring, summer and fall. I spray occasionally with insecticide. In fact, I may do it again soon! :) Thanks for the comment. ~ karen
Karen, I just found your wonderful blog today. Now that I've read this, it's like we're kindred spirits, or at least 2 ladies who feel environmentally responsible, yet will stop at nothing to obliterate a centipede.
This post truly gives me the willies, and now I have to share my horror story. About this time last year, my little girl thought it would be fun if I took a bath with her. Thank God my husband was home!
She and I got out of the tub, and I quickly wrapped a towel around me while I got her dried off and put her pj's on. I kept getting this feeling (on the side of my butt, no less) that a tag was scratching or poking me. As I was taking the towel off wondering why a non-existent tag would be irritating my skin, that's when I saw it... one of those horrific house centipedes.
Needless to say, I flung the towel, screaming in horror, obscenities flying out of my mouth like the towel flew off my body. Yes, that ugly sucker bit me! It left a welt that was there for 2 days, and boy, did it itch! Thankfully my husband calmed me and my daughter, and best of all he killed it before it could scurry away!
Just the thought of that nasty thing touching my bare skin still makes me want to puke! Lesson learned: always shake the bath towel and look at both sides before wrapping up in it!
Whitney P. - I can't even IMAGINE. CANNOT. I would die. I really would!! I had heard that they bite! I can't even talk about anymore. I have to go now. ~ karen p.s. Glad you found my site! Hope you come back. :)
You are stinking hilarious. I die every time I see a spider, and my heart sinks a little every time I hear one of my kids scream "a bug!" because that means I have to deal with it. When I was little, I found a giant centipede in our basement. Think as long as your foot and as fat as a snake. My mom didn't kill it because she was afraid it would explode on the carpet, but she promptly put it outside...and I've never been the same since. Stupid things stink!
Ashely - We ... you and I ... are now best friends. ~ karen
Karen,
Just so you know, those centipedes are totally harmless and actually helpful, as they are predatory and eat other insects and fungus that would be more upsetting, I'm sure (like bed bugs, cock roach larvae, and mold in your walls).
Hi Thrillho! Yeah. I've been told. I don't care. :) ~ karen
I felt compelled to come back to this post of yours after I flipped on the light in my bedroom last night to find one of these buggers scurry across my bed. What ensued next was something of a skin-crawling-ick dance while I figured out how to kill it without smooshing it's disgusting insides all over my sheets. Needless to say, the bed was torn apart to make sure there weren't any more.
So anyway, just wondering, what was that horrible toxic chemical that you sprayed?? Because I think I need to go pick some up... :(
Karen O. - OMG. You have my sympathies. That's AWFUL. I use Raid House & Garden because it has the highest percentage of Pyrethrins in it. That's the deadly stuff. Raid Spider Blaster also has it. Both of those products work. Spray them around the baseboards on the floor and around windows and doors. PLUS I have my house sprayed for them every few years by a professional bug sprayer guy. Sad, but true. Good luck! ~ karen
You know... those centipedes actually eat other bugs. They are considered a "good" insect to have around... not in your house... sure... but maybe in the garden or something.
Ellie - Yup. I'm well aware of that information. Don't change my opinion on them one little bit. :) ~ karen
That was a really gross story. And I think it calls for moving up to Yellowknife where you can celebrate Earth Hour at the same time as everyone else, in full sunlight. #yaymidnightsun
Nancy - I've always wondered about that! What it was like. Doesn't it just make you want to stay up all the time? And when do you put your p'jamas on? I usually put my p'jamas on once it gets dark out. In the winter this could mean 6 o'clock p.m., in the summer 9 p.m. Do everyone in the frozen tundra just wear regular clothing all the time? I'd miss my p'jamas. ~ karen
I think now would be a good time to post a nice picture of flowers or kitties or something, to cleanse our mental palates.
Pam'a - That's what today's post is for! ~ karen
I HATE HATE HATE this post and all the comments! I've had bed-bug issues before. Those are the absolute worst. I thought I was going insane. This brings back way too many memories.
I have chills and slight nausea. I'm never going to sleep again.
Elise - I'd take centipedes over bed bugs ANY DAY. Ick. Sorry for your pain. ~ karen
Yeah, I think I keep living up here in the cold northern tundra of Wisconsin where the worst bugs I see are itsy-bitsy spiders...thank you all for generating a warmth of gratitude in my heart in this 30 degree weather.
You think those house centipedes are bad, imagine a house full of cave crickets. We have them in Pennsylvania and if you have a damp basement, they will move right in. What's even worse is that, as a defense mechanism, they will actually jump AT you if you get too close and startle them, to you know, scare you away. I'm normally pretty good about bugs, even spiders and such fascinate me. But cave crickets? They are disgusting and spindly and come from straight from my nightmares. They can all die.
In case you want to shudder more... ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_cricket
Dear Karen,
Your “Mother Earth” story was the first post I read from your blog a year ago. I was surfing the web for solutions against centipedes (I think) when I stumbled onto your blog.
I got hooked and here we are one year later talking about bugs again!
Roxana - Yay! Bugs'll keep us together I guess. Happy anniversary. :) ~ karen
Hey, Karen? What's the difference between a centipede and a millipede? I agree with you entirely - centipedes can only be the mascot of the Prince of Darkness - but around here, it seems people use centipede and millipede interchangeably to refer to the same unholy critters.
(Good gravy, is it possible there is something CREEPIER and LEGGIER than the centipede????)
Stefanie - I often find Millipedes in the woodpile outside. They're more solid looking, like a skinny worm. Black. They are also extremely gross but they don't seem to make it in the house.
Are they actually nasty? Do they bite or do they just appear freaky? I'm not really freaked out by bugs unless as Bill said they are actually on me, even then I can stay calm enough to remove them. So I am trying to work out if my rapidly growing fear and repulsion to these critters is mine or being fueled by all the eeks and bleughs...
My eek? Crabs. Totally irrational, based on an old nightmare I had as a kid. That once resulted in me sobbing hysterically and uncontrollably whilst attempting to literally climb my 5'2" mother. On a beach in India, trying to escape crabs about the size of your thumb nail - there was hundreds of them. They were the same colour as the sand, so it looked like the entire beach was moving. She couldn't hold me or even help as she was doubled over laughing so hard she was also crying. NEVER have I been so terrified. For absolutely NO reason. None. Nada. Zip Zilch. Zero.
I was persuaded years later to sleep on a beach in Australia on a back-packing trip. I woke in the middle of the night to hear scurrying I watched a crab, run sideways up the side of my sleeping bag, stand on my chest for a while and watch ... me the beach, not sure. I was frozen to the spot with fear, I couldn't swat it, I couldn't roll over, I couldn't get up and run screaming up the beach to safety. OMG I wish I was better than this! Glad I am not the only one though.
Bev - I think the reason centipedes terrify so many people is #1 they're just plain frightening looking. #2 They keep living and their legs keep moving even if you cut it in half and squish part of it. and #3 They're incredibly fast. You can spot one out of the corner of your eye and within a millisecond it's GONE. Oh! And they only come out in the dark so whenever you encounter one it surprises you. There are a multitude of other reasons as to why they're so ick but I really don't want to get into them. I'm not bothered by bugs in general. These things though? ACK!
OMG....laughing so hard I peed. So sorry for your fright but it is so funny I can't help it. Tears in my eyes.
Oh shudder, goosebumps, shudder. That is just AWFUL! Some things are instinctively scary. I'm not a girly-girly-eek-a-bug kind of girl, but centipedes are deep down creepy. Mother Earth has a twisted sense of humour.
I like how the Google auto-generated add at the end of the post is for Terminix (at least for me).