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Centipede: (n) a small, predatory, long, thin animal with many legs.
Ignorance can be very appealing and humorous–as long as it’s presented as the stupidity it truly is. Matter of fact, humor is often the
exposure of ignorance.
There are times I pull up a word for this daily essay and decide to study a little further, so that the information I impart to you is tinged with accuracy. (God knows I wouldn’t want to give you fake or faulty facts.)
But on this particular day, I chose NOT to look up anything on the centipede because my ignorant understanding of it is so darling.
Over the years I did not know the difference between a centipede and a millipede, except that one creature touts a hundred legs and the other brags a thousand.
What always tickled my funny-bone was the knowledge that the animal with the hundred legs is quite large and dangerous, while the “slitherer” with a thousand legs is small and fairly harmless.
So much like our world.
When in doubt, when feeling insecure, when confronted with competition–over-advertise. Exaggerate.
The millipede was certainly intimidated by the prowess of the centipede, so it picked a name that immediately had legs to it. A thousand, to be exact.
So over the years, whenever I thought about these beings, I always reminded myself that the one who bragged about the most appendages was actually the weaker.
Huh.
Maybe there’s a lesson there.
Published by Jonathan Cring
6 years ago 
