Worst. Superhero. Ever.

This morning the boy and I stepped outside early, earlier than I usually set foot in the great outdoors, in order to try and capture the illustrations necessary for an upcoming blog. Alas, we failed. As we turned to re-enter the house, I pulled open the screen door and saw a monster run along the INSIDE of my door.

The closest that I can come to describing it was that it was approximately the size of my head, it had about 75 thousand legs, and it wanted to jump on my ear to suck my brain out. Given that description, the only option that I had was to shriek.

"Oh My God! There's a thing! On the fence! Ew ew ew ew ew!!! And now it's in my house! It ran along the fence and now it's in my house! Killitkillitkillit!!!!"

Note: all of this was said while releasing the door, backing AWAY from the door quickly, and gesturing to it frantically.

The boy LEAPED into superhero mode. "What?"

It was here that my panic took over. "ON THE FENCE! It was huge! And now it's in my house! I can't go back in there!! It was HUGE! OMGOMGOMGOMG!"

"On the fence?" The boy whirled around to look at the fence behind us. "Then how can it be in your house now?"

"ON THE FENCE....ER, screen. I meant screen. It ran along the inside of the screen and now it's in my house." (It was here that my brain kicked back in.)

"WHERE IS IT AND WHAT IS IT?!"

"Why are you yelling at me?"

"BECAUSE YOU ARE MAKING NO SENSE! YOU SAID FENCE, SO I'M LOOKING AT THE FENCE, BUT THEN YOU SAID IT WAS IN THE HOUSE!"

"I opened the door and a huge bug ran along the inside of the screen towards the cat. It is now in my house. It was huge."

The boy took a deep breath. "Point to where the bug went."

I timidly stretched out a finger to indicate the inside corner of the screen near the hinges.

"Okay. Good. Let me go take a look."

The boy disappeared in my house, and I walked with the dog for a bit. I heard the muffled sounds thumping, a "JESUS!" and then an aerosol can being sprayed. Finally I heard, "All clear now."

As I re-entered the house I said, "You know, I don't remember the part in the story where the superhero yells at the damsel in distress."

"Well, if the damsel doesn't TELL the superhero where the bad guys went, he can't help her, can he?"

"I still don't think he ever yelled at her. She's panicking. In fact, he should be grateful that she's any help at all. Most damsels are swooning by the time the superhero gets there."

"What is this, a superhero in 1920?"

"If it were, I'll bet he wouldn't yell at the damsel."

"And I'll bet the damsel was able to tell him where the bad guys are."

"Whatever. Panic. It's something that superheros learn to deal with correctly at their superhero workshops."

"Superhero workshops?"

"Yes. Which is how they avoid becoming the worst superhero ever."

"Is that me?"

"Well, it's not me! I'm the swooning damsel."

"That certainly was a lot of shrieking for a swoon."

"Shut it."