I Woke Up With a Centipede on My Face

What a prick [I felt at my ear]!

If you type in “Do Centipedes…” in Google, the first suggestion Google throws back at you is “enter ears?”

Ugh. No. Chills run up the spine.

I think that if I had known that this was even a possibility before I woke up with a centipede on my face, I may have actually died. As it was, with my heart pounding out of my chest, dying still wasn’t out of the question.

It started as an innocent little prick next to my ear. That’s what it felt like. I was in a sound, REM sleep, so I just flicked the little prick away with my finger.

Then my sleepy brain woke up a bit and thought: “That’s unusual. I’ve never felt this sensation in the middle of the night while sleeping.”

What can it be?

I got up to turn on the light and almost threw up at what I saw. Something slithered like a snake to get away from the light. It went under my pillow.

Is that a snake in my bed? I’d heard of people having snakes come up their toilets (that story gave me nightmares for a few weeks). And I’ve heard of snakes living under houses and coming in through doors and flooring. But I’d never heard of them sneaking up on people in the middle of the night while they slept in their beds.

What do I do? The house was silent. The choice was either to forget about it and go back to sleep (with a killer somewhere in the room) or fight to the death with whatever “IT” was.

I slowly, quietly crept over to the bed shaking with fear and dread, undecided.

I lifted my pillow. It wasn’t a snake. It was a creature that I had only ever seen in books before.

Is this a centipede or millipede? Which one is poisonous? Am I going to fall into eternal sleep like Snow White from that tiny ear prick? These were the micro thoughts that went through my mind in a split second at some time after midnight as my life flashed before my eyes and I decided what to do next.

The six to eight-inch long creature had latched onto the underside of my pillow and clung to it as I raised it up.

I didn’t take the time to measure its exact size, because no sooner had I uncovered its hiding spot than it started running a marathon across my pillow. …Just think how fast a snake could go if it also had legs. That was the speed this creature was moving.

One of us was going to die tonight. Spoiler: It was not going to be me.

I had to act quickly.

AhhhhHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhHHH!!!! I yelled like a Brave Heart battle cry, waking up my sister from her sleep.

I grabbed the pillow and rushed with it and the moving creature out of my room and threw it in the bathtub. This was not a time for a catch-and-release.

In the fight to the death, I won the battle.

I changed my pillowcase and got shakily back in my bed.

“What was that?” My sister asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I never want to see one again.”

The next morning I woke up with two tiny red dots next to my ear and went to the computer to look up the midnight nightmare creature.

Here’s what I learned:

• Fact 1: It was a centipede.
• Fact 2: They are poisonous creatures, but usually not strong enough to harm humans.
• Fact 3: They bite you by “puncturing skin with clawed, pointy legs located on their first body segment.” (Thanks to healthline.com for that quote.)
• Fact 4: Centipedes can enter your ear, but it’s rarer than other things that might happen… like a dog getting skunked.
• Fact 5: Don’t worry, even if a centipede enters your ear, your ear isn’t stupid enough to let a centipede enter your brain. Buuuttt your ear might let maggots enter it if they come with cake.
• Fact 6: Most centipedes are less than 6 inches. But, in Texas, they are usually 6.5 to 9 inches long and are called giant desert centipedes.

Luckily for me (and my sister), centipedes don’t seem to come in pairs. That was the first and last time I ever saw one in person.

But it certainly gave a whole new meaning to the phrase: “Let me put a bug in your ear.”

Actually, please don't.

Moral of this story: Everything really IS bigger in Texas.