Scorpions

When B and I moved into our last apartment a few years ago, we were not aware that it was infested by scorpions. But we found out soon enough. Since then, I have had a morbid fascination with them. I even kept two in a cage for about a year, and fed them crickets (our friends' young son liked to watch the 'lobsters' eating). People who did not have scorpion infestations would look at Big Stu and Little Stu and say "Those aren't very big." To which I would reply that it wasn't so easy to be brave when they were coming at you over the carpet with their tails waving around looking for something to sting.

Our new house was not infested with scorpions, I thought. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office playing on my computer. I have a subwoofer under the desk that I had stacked some papers and books on. I reached down and pulled a book out of the stack and something fell down and skittered across my foot. It was a scorpion.

I yelled at B, who came quickly, but we were out of practice. It took us awhile to find the special scorpion spray (regular bug spray doesn't even faze them), and we never did find the special scorpion spaghetti tongs. Finally, B managed to cut him into a few pieces with some scissors. But I am back to wearing shoes at all times in the house, and never touching anything you can't see.

There are many creatures that I am willing to share my habitat with, including wasps, spiders, and beetles. But scorpions give me nightmares.