There I was. Washing the lasagna pan from yesterday's lunch when all of a sudden, there IT was! I think it fell from the ceiling. It could have landed on my head. And it looked kind of like the one we found a couple of days ago and let loose out in the field. Was it him? I don't know.
Let me tell you what I heard about scorpions from people at the New Year's Eve party we went to.
Barb is a physical anthropologist who teaches at a NY university. She was here studying howler monkeys over Christmas break. She has been stung by wasps and bitten by ants so many times on her trips to Central America that for the past two years she has been taking desensitization shots. Didn't help when she got bit by an ant on while on an island in Lake Nicaragua. That's when she started going into anaphylactic shock and found out those shots didn't work that well. What could she do? No epinephrin. She went to bed and was glad to wake up in the morning. Barb has lots of experience with scorpions and other bugs. So now she sleeps in a tent. Even when she's in a hotel. She puts her mattress inside the noseeum netting. And sleeps with no worries. She says scorpions, when you try to smash them, are about the same consistency as stepping on a little mouse. It's just too gross. She can't do it. She sets them free.
Simon was also at the party. He's down from Philadelphia on a gap year helping out at the Friends School. Earlier that day he'd had a scorpion drop onto his shoulder and run down his arm. It happened so quickly he didn't have time to react. Which was good. The scorpion disappeared in between the couch cushions. Simon said they have pointy little feet and you can feel the little prickles when they run across you.
Simon introduced us to another young man whose name I can't remember. But that morning he'd woken up to find a scorpion on his leg. Instant reaction was to brush it off. Bad idea! It stung both his hand and his leg. Which gets us to the interesting part. What did that feel like? Like the tingles when your foot falls asleep. Except all the tingles were concentrated in just one spot. And not fun.
My apologies to all three of these people for what I'm sure are many misquotes.
Okay. I'm over it now. I'll go finish washing the dishes. And my apologies for not getting pictures. Couldn't get that scorpion out of the house fast enough and the camera was the last thing on my mind. But the scorpion was black. And big.
But wait! If you really want to see a scorpion picture, here's the one we caught in the bathroom cabinet. For your viewing pleasure.
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