While I’m really beginning to love Austin with all the new restaurants popping up, I’m never going to love this: Norma coming to me, panic-stricken, saying I must see "the animal Bikini has in his mouth." Something in me fluttered. I imagined a bunny, then a bird. "It’s still alive," she said, "Thick with many legs." Maybe animal wasn’t the right word. I knew she knew the word for Scorpion and Tarantula (been there, am still queasy from that). This is what I saw…

When I was in seventh Grade, Mr. Arluck made us collect insects, pinning them to styrofoam boards, labeling each little bugger with their proper species and phylum. Surely, if I sent him this I’d get some extra credit. More, even, than I got for bringing in the lobster shells from our family Sunday night dinner of lobster Cantonese. A real live centipede.

A YEAR AGO: Horizon Lines, Planes, Trains and Automobiles
2 YEARS AGO: Start Spreading the News
5 YEARS AGO: Saved!