I was in my kitchen the other night, minding my own business and not harassing any arachnids of any sort, when out of the corner of my eye I spied my cat, Gabby, batting at something. He wasn't doing the sort of playful, enthusiastic batting a cat does with a toy; he was cautiously batting at this object like he was trying to ascertain just what the heck it was. I walked over to investigate, and it turns out we had a new roommate.

This is sort of what it looked like, except ours had a suitcase, and was much, much bigger. About the size of an Irish wolfhound, to be precise.

I quickly lifted Gabby out of harm's way, and called frantically for my fiancé, CJ. Having someone around to duel all of the ferocious arachnids who haplessly wander into my habitat is, like, one of the most fantastic things ever. Ev. Er. I am going to put this proviso in our wedding vows. You can bet on it.

CJ cheerfully ambled into the room, certain that my calls were the result of a spider, which he has no problem dealing with. But a scorpion? He was about as happy to see it as I was. Which is to say, not at all. I was starting to lose faith, because he seemed somewhat panicked. This whole arachnid-smooshing thing was part of the deal, and he knew that going in. The night he proposed, I told him, "OK, but YOU have to kill all the spiders and stuff." This clearly fell into the "and stuff" category. Any lawyer would tell you the same thing. Of course, the beauty part is, lots of things can fall into the "and stuff" category, such as pesky co-workers, noisy neighbors, and ex-husbands. I like to cover all my bases.

I directed CJ to a nearby shoe, which would have to suffice since neither of us owns a firearm (note to self: procure firearm) and he grabbed it and proceeded to swat at the scorpion. Meanwhile, Gabby was riveted in my arms. Look! The humans are batting at things, too! He knew we had it in us. The scorpion began to lamely stagger about on the carpet, injured, but not surrendering by any means. "Kill it, quick, before it calls its brothers, fer chrissakes!" Finally, CJ found success with the fatal flip-flop (it's a damn fine flip-flop), and the scorpion was no more. It descended back to Hell, from whence it came.

I grabbed a baggie and 300 paper towels, and instructed CJ to drop the carcass into the baggie, as it was now Exhibit A in what would be Irate Morning Visit To Apartment Rental Office. CJ, not trusting the padding of the armload of paper towels, brilliantly asked for tongs. I held open the baggie, holding my breath and squinting as though I was expecting it to struggle back to life à la Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, while CJ deposited its evil cadaver into its plastic coffin, and then I zipped its ass up but good. Once it was safely sealed for freshness, I tried to take a closer look at it.

OK, so may I interject here that this has to be THE fugliest damn creature on the face of God's Green Earth? I mean, seriously: a stinger AND claws? Are you kidding me? Isn't that what we'd call overkill? Not to mention all those eyes and legs and...my GOD! It is the embodiment of evil. This is what child molesters look like upon reincarnation, and that's how we know to smoosh them mercilessly with footwear.

I could not even really look at it. Arachnids make me violently scared, like a black, gooey, irrational, phobic flavor of scared. Like frozen in terror scared. Like screaming, "Get it OFF ME!!!!" with tears streaming down my face kinda scared. Like twitching in a corner while crying and staring at the mangled, leggy corpse while clutching a shoe jammed on a broomstick and then finally obtaining a fistful of paper towels and picking up the mangled, leggy corpse and then running while sobbing, "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod..." all the way to the trash and then jamming it deep in the garbage bag and then tying up the garbage bag and then running out to the dumpster with it while sobbing, "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod..." kinda scared.

Cavewoman-past-life-me was apparently sucked dry by a ginormous cavespider and this left some sort of biological, self-preservation-imprint on me that makes me stupid with fear when confronted with an arachnid...and spiders are the doe-eyed, rainbowpuppykittenland member of the arachnid family when compared to their cousin, the scorpion.

I would rather have a 25 lb tarantula curl up on my feet while happily gnawing on a rubber bone with its enormous, cavewomankapooku-sucking fangs each evening, and take it for walks on a leash, and have it snore on my pillow, nestled between me and CJ the Scorpion Killer every night than have another scorpion in my house.

Spiders say, "I am sneaky and quiet. My web will get in your eyes. You won't know I am there until my bite surprises you." Scorpions say, "Oh, bah-ring it OOOOON, bitch! I will STING you and PINCH you and I laugh at your pain! I am the buttugliest mofo you have EVER seen, and I will STING and STING and PINCH and PINCH and LAUGH! AH HA HA HA!!!!" And then they do laugh maniacally. I swear it. Spiders creep invisibly about the house; scorpions stomp brazenly down the middle of your living room, daring you to brandish a sneaker at them, and flipping you off.

The next morning, after a long night filled with visions of scorpions scuttling through my head, I tried looking up stuff about them on the 'net. Turns out, the scorpions in our neck of the woods aren't all that dangerous, unless you're allergic to their venom in which case, you know, you'll die. I'd rather not find out whether or not I am allergic, but thanks, anyway. Also, their sting is "painful." What a cheery prospect!

Oh, and they're currently on tour.

Damn the Scorpions, because half the sites Yahoo snagged for me were about the Scorpions, as opposed to plain old scorpions. And while I would have been happier to have found one of THESE Scorpions in my living room, it would be only marginally. After all, these Scorpions are equally sinister (especially the one in the middle), and they inflict their own sort of pain.

By the way, the complex management was sufficiently horrified, and promised to send over a man with poison to take care of things.

If we come home to find these guys, I'll let you know how we fare swatting them with flip-flops.

~ October 30, 2004