The Green Visitor in the Stairwell

A praying mantis has taken up residence in the hallway of our apartment building. I have no idea how it got there. It's been living in our stairwell for the last two or three days, and it kind of creeps me out. I imagine it as a female, biting off the head of its mate, or as a fierce predator, like the larger mantises who unbelievably manage to eat lizards or birds. It literally turns its head and looks at me when I walk by it. It is freakin' creepy to watch an insect turn its head and look at you, especially when it looks like this.

I've been busy doing laundry all evening, which means that I've spent a lot of time going up and down the stairs to access the washer and dryer in our basement. Each time I go into the hall, it seems to be in a different place; sometimes it's on the wall, sometimes on the stairs, sometimes hanging out in between the bars on the staircase rail.

I couldn't possibly kill it. I can't stand to kill things, so I almost always take bugs outside when I find them in my house (unless it is something particularly gross, in which case I will usually yell for Dan or sic one of my cats on it). Even if I was the killing kind, praying mantises seem so different than the little bugs you can just squash with your shoe. On the other hand, the thought of trying to capture a praying mantis is impossible to me, as I imagine it jumping up in my face and trying to bite off my nose. So I suppose there is a good possibility that it will be hanging out in our stairwell for a while.

The weird thing is that it's starting to grow on me a little bit. It's become kind of like "Where's Waldo?" to see which spot it's in each time I walk through the hall. When it turned to look at me as I was headed to work this morning, it kind of creeped me out, but I just pretended that it was telling me, "Good morning." It's kind of cool to look at--if nothing else, you have to admit that they're pretty fascinating. On the other hand, I'm not keeping my eyes off that thing. If it jumps on my leg during my next trip up the stairs, I'm dropping the laundry basket and running like hell.