Coffee not doin' it for ya? Try a scorpion sting!

 
That'll wake you up.

Moments ago, I was putting the finishing touches on my arrowhead post, then went to change out of my jammies, pulled on the jeans I'd folded this a.m. (they'd been piled on the floor) and ow...ow....?!?... OW!!!

The back of my left knee had very fine, very sharp, almost electric pulsing pains, growing worse and worse.

Jeans fall onto the floor (whump!). I'm doubled over holding the back of my knee, Bear is asking what's wrong, I say I think I got bit, and I start trying to turn my pants inside out to look, but my knee hurts too much.

I step away and just hold my knee in a crouch and say "Ow!!"

Bear takes jeans outside for a review of the contents and I crouch, shocked at what feels like a neuro-toxin-y kind of pain.

The biologist in me thinks: Not a black widow spider, I hope--I expect that'd hurt a LOT more, but maybe not right away? Feels like when I got stung by a jelly fish, so I do think it's some neuro-toxin-y thing v. a chunk of flesh getting bitten out.

Hobble-hobble, whine-whine, and I think: maybe that was a scorpion. I've heard (from better biologists than I) that it's like a bee sting (the ones in southern California, that is)--nothing deadly.

"Honey, come take a look!"  Bear is on the front porch, holding up my totally inside out  pants, looking down at the sidewalk.

A scorpion.

My first thought & words? "I thought it was a scorpion!"  As if someone is keeping score re: the accuracy of my guesses post-animal attack re: origin. whattadork.

I run back into the house in my undies--to get dressed? No. To grab my camera. Go back outside, still in skivvies, and take pictures:

That's a clover burr on the left, for scale

Poor thing's tail tip is broken off so I feel really bad. Don't know if it will survive.

=(

So, that's a kind of sad ending--maybe. Maybe it'll live but not sure how it'll hunt/defend itself now, but this is a good excuse to learn about that. Do scorpions need their stingers to a) live, b) hunt?

Anyhow, I feel really bad for the thing. But there's not a lot I can do about it now.

Either way, though, is that an effective WAKE UP NOW!!!! tool. I was instantly WIDE awake, but now that the pain is gone, I'm feeling a little tired out.

So this is a lesson re: dropping your fresh laundry on the floor to fold "later." I'm thinkin' fold it NOW while it's piping hot, and put it away. Yikes.

Regardless of how this affects my long term behavior, though, TODAY I am DEFINITELY wearing a skirt!


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