I found a scorpion on the living room floor the other night. As if just finding a scorpion wasn't bad enough, my niece and one of my daughters were both sleeping on said living room floor. Like any normal mother, my first thought was to wake up Ron and the kids, run out of the house screaming, and burn it down. Instead, I found the nearest container, placed it over the scorpion and ran to get Ron so he could kill it. Ron came out to see it, but rather than wanting to kill it, he wanted to capture it.
The container that I had placed over the scorpion was one of those plastic food containers you get from grocery stores or delis. The kind with a plastic lid. Since Ron wanted to capture it, rather than kill it (crazy man!), I got him a piece of stiff construction paper that he could slide under the container and flip it over so that the scorpion would be inside the container and not likely to figure out a way to get out from under it. Once he had the container flipped over with the scorpion inside, I went to find the lid for it and handed it to Ron. As Ron took the lid from me, he asked, "shouldn't there be holes in it?" "Only if we want it to live," I replied. Unfortunately, he wanted it to live so he put holes in it.
Ron had bought a black light that could be used to find tomato hornworms in the garden. Hornworms glow in the dark with these lights and make them easier to find. Ron wanted to see if the scorpion would also glow, and it did. It was actually pretty cool to see it glow, but I still thought it would be cooler to see it dead.
Once it was safely in the container, I started looking up information on scorpions. Basically, I wanted to know 1) what would happen if you were stung by one and 2) did finding one in your house mean that you were likely to have more, like with rats, ants or cockroaches. I was glad to find out that most stings are not deadly and that they do not nest, so having one in the house did not mean that were was a nest in the house. Unfortunately, they do tend to come in houses in the summer, which means that we could find more.
Knowing that this was not likely to be our last encounter with a scorpion as long as we were in East San Diego County, I thought that we should find a place to live where there are no scorpions. While perhaps burning down the house was not an option, we could always move somewhere without scorpions. Sadly, the only place on the planet without scorpions is Antarctica. So, now I have to try and find a research job so we can move there. So far, I have not had any cooperation on this move from the rest of my family though.
Once it was safely in the container, I started looking up information on scorpions. Basically, I wanted to know 1) what would happen if you were stung by one and 2) did finding one in your house mean that you were likely to have more, like with rats, ants or cockroaches. I was glad to find out that most stings are not deadly and that they do not nest, so having one in the house did not mean that were was a nest in the house. Unfortunately, they do tend to come in houses in the summer, which means that we could find more.
Knowing that this was not likely to be our last encounter with a scorpion as long as we were in East San Diego County, I thought that we should find a place to live where there are no scorpions. While perhaps burning down the house was not an option, we could always move somewhere without scorpions. Sadly, the only place on the planet without scorpions is Antarctica. So, now I have to try and find a research job so we can move there. So far, I have not had any cooperation on this move from the rest of my family though.
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