Ouch!

The scene of the crime

After last night, I now have a very good response to the question: How do you not want to be woken up at 1AM?

My answer: By a scorpion sting.

Husband’s answer (I’m guessing): By my wife shrieking after a scorpion sting.

I had been asleep for a few hours, when I suddenly felt something near my pillow. I was somewhere in the middle of being awake and being asleep, when my sleepy self tried to move whatever it was.

Then, I yelped. My poor pinky finger knew what had happened before my brain processed it: I got stung!

Of course, my loud shriek woke up Husband instantly, and he asked in a panic, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“I need you to turn on the lights,” I said. “There’s something on my pillow.”

Then we saw it. A small (but scary-looking) scorpion sitting there. Was it waiting for some pillow talk?

If so, this is what it got from Husband: “Oh, you’re gonna die, you little [censored].”

He carefully took the pillow and threw it on the floor, and then pulverized the scorpion with a shoe.

In the meantime, I got some ice for my finger. It was slightly swollen, and there was a tiny “if-you-squint-hard-enough-you-might-see-it” pinprick of a mark on it.

But for such a small sting, it sure caused quite a bit of pain. It was slightly worse than a bee sting, but not as bad as a jellyfish sting. (That’s a blog post for another time.)

The irony is that we had carefully considered the scorpion issue after the first (and only) time we had seen them. It prompted us to do some research on the internet, where we found that scorpions stings in this area are not at all serious. That, thankfully, saved me from screaming dramatically “I’m dying! I’m dying!” after I had been stung. (Thank you, internet.)

Even yesterday Husband persuaded me not to clean the garage like I wanted because he was afraid that I might find a scorpion and get stung. So, who would have thought that merely sleeping would be such a dangerous activity?

Anyway, I rummaged through our medicine cabinet, looking for some Benadryl or Tylenol. That search only made me wonder if I had been transported back in time, or if our medicine supply was really that outdated. Everything was expired – by a few years. I’m not even joking when I say that I found one that expired 06/98. (No, that’s not a typo; it expired in 1998.) It’s sad when you realize that you own medicine that expired years before the twenty-first century.

I finally found some of Husband’s generic aspirin, and it didn’t expire until 2009. (Score!) I carefully read the directions, yet it wasn’t until after I downed the second pill that I noticed the unfortunate word “caffeine” in small print on the front. Because nothing will calm you to sleep after a disturbing scorpion sting like a strong rush of caffeine.

Husband searched the whole house for other potential scorpions, and he found and killed one in the laundry room. But first he told it, “This is war, you [censored]! I’m going to kill you and all your friends!”

I assured Husband that I was ok, and he eventually made his way back to bed. I decided to camp out on the couch – with a new pillow.

For some strange reason, I couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps it was because: 1) my finger was still sore from a recent scorpion sting, 2) I might have been suffering from post-traumatic scorpion sting disorder (PTSSD), 3) with those pills, I took the equivalent caffeine dose of two cups of strong coffee, or 4) I was still paranoid that a scorpion might be crawling near me.

I stayed on the couch, with my eyes as wide as saucers, scanning the darkness for anything lurking. In fact, I nearly screamed once when I felt something on my neck, but it turned out to be just my pony tail. (Phew!)

After a few sleepless hours, I finally fell into scorpion-free sleep.

After all of this, I can confidently add “getting stung by a scorpion in the middle of the night” to the list of experiences that I do not want to repeat.

I can also add “scorpion spray” and “medicine that expires in this century” to my list of things to buy.