SCORPIONS I HAVE KNOWN

My husband (a November Scorpion) and my son (a late October Scorpion) are two Scorpions that come to mind when I think of Scorpions I know and love.


And, then there are those that I have stepped on . . . literally, not figuratively.
Scorpions are encountered too frequently for my taste in our part of the flyover state.  (One encounter is one too many.)  We built our house in the mid 1990s, and, at that time, we were warned that scorpions like to inhabit recently built homes.  My guard was up for the first couple of years but when I didn’t see one, I forgot about them until . . . 


One night I rolled out of bed to make a 1 a.m. visit to the bathroom.  Halfway to my destination,  I placed my right foot down and received a painful sting.  Screaming, I turned on the light, and there was a scorpion with its tail curled.  I screamed again.  The scorpion screamed too!  (No, it didn’t, sometimes I just like to anthropomorphize.)  My knight in shining armor leaped out of bed -- scratch that -- try instead, “my knight in shining armor stumbled out of bed, searching for his glasses, “Whaaaaa……????”  


“SCCCCOOOOORRRPPPIIIOOONNNNN”  My husband whipped out his Colt .45, aimed and (nah, now tell the truth) my husband grabbed the largest book he could find by his side of the bed and brought it down on that poor scorpion.  I say “poor scorpion” because it was doing what it was born to do -- sting.  But why?


After checking www.thebuggyokc.com/scorpions.htm I learned that I was probably stung by a bark scorpion.  Its sting produces “severe pain.”  Amen.  But then the site also mentions that frothing at the mouth could occur.  So that explains that!  


Nocturnal loners, scorpions  feed on insects and small lizards and snakes.  Their venom paralyzes their prey.  Okay, great, so that explains their part in the balance of nature.  But I really don’t like them in my house which explains what I did when I encountered a scorpion several years later, same house.


I was talking on the phone to my parents one July morning and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  A large scorpion had rounded the corner of the dining room and was hurriedly heading  toward . . .an appointment with death, perhaps?  I don't know, but it was moving.  I screamed.  My dad said, “What’s wrong?”  “A scorpion!”  “Well, kill it,” he said.


I put the phone down, went to the  kitchen and grabbed the biggest pot at hand, held  my breath and brought it smashing down on that scorpion.    I didn’t want to kill it but it was in my house.  Just stay out of my house!  Here’s a picture of the scorpion.