How to Rescue a Millipede

Learned from observing the expert millipede rescuer, Ms. Crazy Preschooler:

1. Search all the corners of the basement until you find a somewhat squished millipede that can move, but only slightly because you don’t want it to move too much. Millipedes that move too much are not only startling, but also difficult to catch.

2. Find a small gardening shovel from your garage and a piece of paper. Scoop the not-really-moving millipede up and stick it in a Tupperware glass left over from the last generation of preschoolers.

3. Shake the millipede around. Ask your mother, “Do millipedes get thirsty?” When she replies that yes, millipedes do need water to live, but just a little, just a drop or two, fill up the tupperware glass until it is half full. Watch your millipede float.

4. Your millipede is probably also hungry, nearly starving in fact. Ask your mother, “What do millipedes eat?” When she says she doesn’t know but would be happy to look it up for you later, surmise for yourself that millipedes probably eat dirt. After all, you found it in a grimy and dusty corner of the basement. Run outside with that small garden shovel you used to scoop up the millipede and come back with a heap of fresh mud. Put it on the glass on top of the water. When it oozes appropriately, mix your fingers through the glass and look for the millipede.

5. If you can’t find the millipede, take the glass to the bathroom sink and dump it. Strain through the mud with your fingers until you find the millipede. Hold the millipede in one hand and rinse the mud down the drain (clogging it, of course).

6. Put your millipede back in the empty glass. It needs to rest. For three minutes.

7. If your millipede seems bored, let it swim in the ocean of a sink. But be careful not to let it woosh down the drain, because that is truly, most certainly heartbreaking. You can’t get it back out of the drain.