5.01.2011

The Arizona Lie

So when I first got to Arizona, naturally I was a little weary of the infamous scorpion but everyone I talked to said, "Oh no, you probably won't even see one."  This is what I like to call the Arizona Lie.  I had only been there 3 months when I got stung by a scorpion!  I was walking across a field in our apartment complex and it had just rained making the ground a little damp.  Scorpions love the water and I was wearing sandals, bad combination.  Luckily, the little bugger didn't get me too bad because all I experienced was a burning sting that hurt for the next week; not any numbness or paresthesias.  Anyways, for the next year it was the running joke to push Teresa off the sidewalk into the grass. Very funny, not.
After that episode it was a few months before one breeched the border of my humble abode.  Just before climbing into bed, hanging out and the floorboard on my side of the bed of course, this is what I saw.

I let out a scream, similar to one you might have heard in a movie when an older lady sees a mouse in the kitchen, and then leaped up onto the bed.  I yelled to Jon to go get the hairspray (I heard this was a good way to kill them).  I then hear Jon clanking around in his tool box, I'm thinking, "What the heck is he doing!  The scorpion is going to get away!"  Just then Jon comes into the bed room with a giant hammer.  Go figure.  To my surprise the hammer is quite effective, he crunches the little sucker right in half.  Then he went to get the little purple black light flashlight, which is a MUST HAVE for anyone living in this part of the country, because it lights the scorpions up so you can find them.