• Vanth@reddthat.com
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    1 day ago

    Childhood spring one year, conditions were perfect for millipedes. The basement floor was covered in them. I mean covered with the floor barely visible.

    They weren’t damaging or dangerous, just disgusting. My dad put on his outdoor shoes and just walked around in tiny steps smashing them. He walked for hours. Then scraped them up with a plastic snow shovel and threw them outdoors for the birds to go wild. Then walked some more.

    No other spring since has resulted in those sorts of numbers. It was interesting to see my dad’s reaction: the disgust and fascination and satisfaction. God help him if he ever discovers pimple popper videos and the like, we would lose him to the algorithm.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Millipedes or centipedes? I always used to get the names backwards, but centipedes are the nightmare fuel one (to my mind), lighting fast and all legs. Millipedes, the legs are less dominantly noticeable an I think of as more of a forest-floor, under-a-log kind of thing.

      I just found and smashed a couple of centipedes in my house the past couple days. My reaction is instinctual and violent. It freaks me out to wonder what they’ve been eating to get so large.

      • Vanth@reddthat.com
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        1 day ago

        Pretty sure it was millipedes. Lots of little legs that go down below the body, versus fewer legs that stick out to the side. And they smelled when squished.

        • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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          1 day ago

          Weird! Ok, I’m less horrified now.

          Come to think if it, centipedes are too fast for the thing your dad did. I bet millipides are a lot crunchier though.

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      This deserves to be in a movie. I don’t know the genre or plot, but it would be one of those scenes you never forget.

      • Vanth@reddthat.com
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        1 day ago

        Homework assignment for a film class: design this vignette in the style of various directors, from Cronenburg body horror to Wes Anderson grief-filled comedy and color palette.

    • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I think i would handle that with a shop vac. Suck em up, take the vac outside near the bird feeder, maybe even prime the birds with a little scattered seeds, then open the shop vac and walk briskly away