Scorpion Killer

This morning I walked 4.5 miles. I overslept a bit so got in only 3 miles before Brian left for work. But I was able to talk Elizabeth into walking to school so I added another 1.5 miles to today's total. Before I did any walking though, I had to take care of a scorpion in my entryway.

You know, I've lived in Arizona for ten years now. It's not a bad place really, but I have to admit that I'm getting a little tired of it. Maybe it's that end of the summer (oh, please let this be the end of summer already!) feeling, and in a few months I'll be in love with it all over again. Jennifer compares our summers to childbirth because as soon as the heat is gone, we forget how horrible it was. But it's not just the heat that bothers me. It's the dust, the polluted brown cloud that hovers over the valley, and the scorpions.

Admittedly, I'm not as afraid of scorpions as I was before I was stung. It hurts like hell, but at least I know now that I'm not allergic and I won't die. But the thought of having those neurotoxins run through the bodies of my kids, well that's another fear altogether. When I see a scorpion in my house or in my yard, I don't scream anymore. I don't jump up and down and shiver when I see it move. I just get angry. Every scorpion I find feels my wrath for the scorpion that stung me. If you need a visual, picture Ralphie from A Christmas Story finally beating up Scut Farkus. That's what I look like when I kill a scorpion.

So yes. When I went outside to walk this morning, I picked up the newspaper and smacked it against the driveway a few times in case any scorpions needed to scurry out. (See? This is what we have to do here. Shake out our shoes. Shake out our towels. Never reach our hands into anything we can't see. Turn lights on when we walk around at night. It's ridiculous.) Anyhow, when I was placing the newspaper by the front door, I saw the scorpion walking up the outside wall. Lucky for me and unlucky for him, I was armed. I smacked him once. He wiggled. I smacked him again and that was that.

As I write this post, Brian is headed out for his nightly scorpion hunt. Fun, huh? He takes a blacklight and fly swatter. Why a blacklight? Because they fluoresce. Disgusting, isn't it?