Hidden Talents

I've been stung by a scorpion a total of 3 times, and had the stuffing scared out of me by...well, I've lost count of how many times, but it's a lot.

Steve's been stung twice, but they don't freak him out so he hasn't had that gut wrenching, all over body shiver of ultimate fear when face to face with evil spawn.

Last night, at 2:38am, there was a knock on our bedroom door and my son announced that there was a scorpion in his bed. This has been a point of pride for him that he'd never had a scorpion in his room. It appeared, however, that his second point of pride was still intact: he'd never been stung. So, I sent Steve the Slayer of Evil to go send the demon beast back to the oozy black pit it came from. Except when he went to kill it, it was already dead. Belly up in the middle of the bed, dead. Ceased to be! It's metabolic processes were history! Kicked the bucket! An ex scorpion!

We couldn't quite figure out how it had gotten in the bed if it was dead. Reanimation? Zombie scorpion? My son thought it was hilarious that the one scorpion that found it's way into his room was dead. Slowly I woke up enough to form questions, "How did you know it was in your bed? What woke you up?"

Him: "It was crawling on my leg and brushed it with my foot. I thought it was a prickle."

Me: "A prickle? Did it sting you?"

Him: "No. Well, my knee kind of hurts where it was crawling."

I looked, and sure enough, there was the red mark where he got stung. So I got him a bag of ice, told him to hold it on for a bit, and go back to sleep. This morning, you wouldn't even be able to tell he'd gotten stung.

Apparently, most people have fairly severe swelling, aches, and feel like they have the flu for days following a sting. My family? A few hours of minor discomfort. My panic attacks are the worst part of the ordeal for us! Not only that, my son kills the damned things in his sleep!

I'm not entirely sure what the implications of this are. Possibly the scorpions need to send out the word that this is no longer a good place for their late night parties. There's a new force to be reckoned with, and we're deadly to evil arachnids! It'd be nice if they'd spread the news of the change of tides of power to their minions: spiders. There's plenty of space that they can use away from the house. Just don't bring your raves here!