The Devil You Don't

There are plenty of creepy crawly things in the world, and, truth be told, a lot of them really freak me out. I am a completely independent, self-sufficient, 21st-century woman.

Except when it comes to bugs.

In the case of those, I really prefer to have a man take care of squashing it for me.

Here in lovely Arizona, I have come to be acquainted with a new variety of creeper. The scorpion.

He is not my friend. Truly.

When I was unpacking boxes here at our new house and generally getting things ready for us to move in, I happened to find one of these beasties hanging out in the master bathroom trash can. He was clearly alive. And -- praise be to the Almighty Lord who knew I would have dropped dead on the spot if I had found this little guy scampering playfully around the house -- he was trapped inside that trash can.

I promptly shut the door to the bathroom and refused to use it until the man of the house could take care of the problem for me.

Did you know scorpions can live for MONTHS without food and water?

We weren't going to starve this baby out.

And as brave and strong as my knight in shining armor is, he wasn't too keen on dumping the scorpion out and chasing him around the house. So he formulated a new plan.

Did you know that it takes a scorpion upwards of 30 minutes to die when covered in clinging lime-a-way?

He fought that lime-a-way with his stinger, with his pinchers, and with every ounce of strength he had in him. But -- be it from the corrosive chemicals eating away at him, or just plain drowning I can't say -- that scorpion finally gave up the ghost.

We are now taking precautions against further scorpion "attacks." Let me fill you in.

Did you know that scorpions fluoresce in blacklights?

Blacklights can be handy in keeping an eye out for these critters when it's dark outside. We wouldn't want to accidentally step on one. Rumor has it that folks who grow up in scorpion territory turn on the blacklights in the back yard and take the whole family outside for a good old-fashioned scorpion stomping contest.

Not sure whose idea of fun that is, but I don't think we are going to be doing anything like that any time soon.

We are also wearing shoes in the house.

Remember that my husband is very clean and very particular and has spent the last 3.5 years training our children that you take off your shoes in the house. Shoes are dirty. We want the floors clean.

But we also don't want to step on scorpions in our bare feet.

So off to the store we went to purchase special "house shoes" that the kids are only allowed to wear inside. For 2 reasons. 1) to keep the floors clean; 2) they are NOT stylish.
The boys LOVE them. Well, the tiny man loves to wear his brothers' shoes more than his own. This has caused many temper tantrums. But it seems that lately he only wants what belongs to someone else. In fact, earlier this week, he would not eat his own cereal. He only wanted what was in N's bowl. Anyway, this behavior is not limited to the shoes.

I spend an extraordinary amount of time checking places for scorpions. In the bathroom. In the kitchen. In shoes. In bed linens.

I dream about them.

The boys are convinced we need to be on the lookout for stingrays, too.

But if I am truly introspective, I know that the paranoia will wear off eventually and that these guys are no worse than other bugs with which I've spent my entire life.

This friendly brown recluse spider, for example:

He's nice and poisonous. And lives all over the Midwest. Don't get me wrong, I don't like spiders. But I think I can count on one hand the number of times I found it necessary to shake out a shoe before I stuck my foot in it.

The devil you know, right?