Thursday, September 11, 2008

Just leave the light on for me

Wow.

So this is what this place looks like, huh?

By some miracle, I am still up.  For how long--well, that's another story.  Hopefully I can get through this without drooling on the keyboard.

Not much new going on in my house other than a lot of same-old-same-old routine:  get 'em up, move 'em out, and pick 'em up, do-your-homework; sprinkled in with trips to the grocery store, my work, and the gas station.  Lots of trips to the gas station. 

One night last week, I fell asleep in the living room, which is not all that surprising.

I woke up and sleepily toddled off to our room, making a pit stop in the bathroom.  

I had just stuck my thumbs into my waistband and was in the process of the mid-drop-trou sitdown when my spidey-sense started tingling.  

Something caught my eye on the ground, right under my foot...because it was moving.  Fast. 

I stood up, yanking my foot up in the process, expecting -yuck- a cockroach (it was that type of moving fast).

Oh.  Just a scorpion.  About six inches long.  Under my foot.

I gasped loudly, that "huugh!" intake of breath that makes you shiver.  I stepped back and bent over a bit to get a better look, goosebumps erupting, forced to evaluate and formulate a plan.

I wasn't fully awake, but you know, that fight-or-flight thing is pretty good at making one snap-to.

Running through the potential weapons I had in the bathroom at the time, I decided an eyelash curler probably wouldn't do the trick, so I opened our bedroom door to go in search of a shoe.

Preferably something along the lines of a size 20 Doc Marten, but alas, Mr W has small feet and all we own are pretty much sneakers.

The light from the bathroom, combined with my "huugh" woke Mr W.  "What?"  "There's a scorpion in here."  "Kill it."  "Duh.  I'm getting a shoe."

Quickly, I grabbed one of my heavier shoes, and I hurried back into the bathroom.  I closed the door and took a deep breath, aimed and gave it a big whack. (You cannot hesitate, it's gotta be a good one, or why bother--it will scurry away.)

It crumpled a little, and oh, is that tail still moving???  WHACK.

I decided beige goo = dead enough so I cleaned it up off the floor and gave it a burial at sea.

I did my business, shuddering at how close I came to stepping on it.   At this point, I was a little too adrenalized to sleep, and decided to watch a little tv to calm down.  (I really wanted to go room to room and make sure I had no more guests, but 5 am is kicking my ass, so I knew I better settle down and go to sleep or live to regret it.)

Turning off the light, I exited the bathroom, and expected to hear a "did you get it?" and maybe a pat, pat, "are you okay?" but instead I heard...snoring. 

My hero, I sighed as I walked down the hall.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I try to avoid bugs that are so big I have to read them their rights.  

Mrs. L

Anonymous said...

Time to get some chickens. Think of the money you'll save on eggs.

Anonymous said...

That just gave me the chills.  
Missie

Anonymous said...

Something that big in my house gets the mortgage payment book. Then I move.

Angel