Tuesday, June 18, 2002

My Battle Against The Scorpion King

Last night I was in my favorite control space -- on the floor with my back against the sofa, feet under the coffee table, fingers tapping on the laptop's keyboard, large bottle of water and manicure kit by my side, and the DVD commentary for the recently acquired Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season II playing -- when my peace was abruptly shattered.

(Note -- if you click over on the Buffy link to Barnes and Noble -- realize Costco is selling the set for $39.95. Eleven bucks less than even the preferred club price at BN. You can find it under new releases in the DVD/Movie section of their site, but you have to be a Costco member to buy. The price for the Third Season of Sex and The City is competitive also -- $33 or so. Of course half.com is tracking pretty closely price wise and may have individual sellers even lower -- but for retail, Costco is hot. Plus you can always pick the DVDs up at the warehouse and save shipping)

But back to my shattered peace.

So there I was sitting on the floor -- incidentally still nursing a wound from a misadventure this past weekend involving heavy kitchen cabinets from Home Depot, one of my younger brothers, and my right shin -- when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

Yes -- I know I was watching cheesy TV horror a la the Buffster -- which can be a little creepy if you let it be. Although I mostly find it creative and amusing with kewl feminist touches.

But this was real movement. Something was on the floor (with me!) and moving in my direction at a fast scuttle.

I turned towards it and saw the pinchers and curved tail, identifying the invader as it slipped under my manicure kit.

A scorpion.

*Yuck*

Pausing the DVD, I limped over to my trusty birkies parked by the door.

Footwear is essential for scorpion hunting.

A quick flip of the manicure kit exposed the beast and I ground him into oblivion.

Stomped him good and thorough.

At least I hoped it was a "him."

My mother disturbed my scorpion death hunt mentality a few weeks ago by commenting they carry eggs on their backs and those eggs can survive a good squish and possibly hatch out in the house at a later date.

Imagine swarms of baby scorpions...

*Ick*

Why the invasion?

As I have mentioned before, I picked up a foreclosure this winter. It is new construction and pretty much out in the hill country of the NW Anderson Loop.

One of the hazards of newer homes in the boonies is the original inhabitants -- scorpions among them -- may not realize they are no longer welcome

Last night's beastie was my eleventh scaly kill.

Three in the garage, five in the yard, and two others in the house proper.

The two other house kills prompted me to buy sonics.

The first was curled up in a damp carpet spot in the fireplace room when I got back from a trip to Houston. Ninja had upchucked some grass there the day before and the consequent scrubbing had not dried.

Thinking it was dead, I got a paper towel, picked it up and started walking to the trash. Only to have it resurrect and begin attacking the flimsy paper protecting my hand.

Dropped promptly, it fled into the pantry closet. With a brief pause to get the birkies from their spot by the door, I began gingerly unloading the pantry.

Amazingly, he stayed still on its floor for the big squish.

The second one was not so dramatic in the Lazarus sense, but creepier.

My Tupperware is still in boxes -- hence the need for the kitchen cabinets from Home Depot. I was fishing for a container for a freshly cored pineapple and pulled out one with its own squatter.

I shook him out and onto the floor, and smooshed him with a cook book.

In my Tupperware!

I felt violated.

My neighbor -- she of the awesome weed popper -- told me about one found clinging to her eyeglass case as she pulled it from her purse. Up until that point she left her purse on the floor by the front door routinely. The appearance of Mr. Stingy Tail resulted in the installation of a wall hook for convenient bag hanging.

Then she told me about the one that crawled into bed and stung her.

Her house is all one story and mine is two story with the bedrooms upstairs -- so they'd have to fight their way up the stairs to get to my resting place... but the thought was still pretty awful.

So I started researching scorpions again on the web this morning.

Turns out they are a type of arachnid that has roamed the earth for 400 million years. The story my mom told me about the eggs was wrong in the sense that scorpions are all about live birth, but they do carry the new born young on their backs. They can also live up to 25 years and go without eating for as long as a year. The "good" news is the North American variants aren't poisonous enough to kill you -- merely enough to cause swelling and discomfort in adults.

Unfortunately, only other scorpions and shrews eat scorpions.

Plus the Pest Control sites pretty much throw up their metaphorical hands and advise you to just seal off the house hermetically since scorpions can slip in through cracks as small as an eighth of an inch and to remove all landscaping in the yard that they can hide under -- including fencing. Ack -- like the evil Home Owners Association would allow that sort of thing.

One of the more humorous educational sites about scorpion control can be found here. Its conclusions were not good though -- pretty much a suck it up and learn to live with them attitude.

I had discovered the arachnid part after the Tupperware encounter and picked up the before mentioned sonics at Sam's Club. The packaging mentioned spiders -- a famous member of the arachnid family -- as one of the critters deterred by the sound waves. So I figured it might work on other arachnids... and plugged the units into every other outlet on the ground floor.

Resulting in complete banishment until that one felt the need to borrow my new chrome nail polish last night.

Now I guess I will have to resort to heavy duty chemical application.

(Bring on the hermaphrodite frogs... )

It can't be helped.

Eliminating hiding places is a non-starter. I mean even looking around the living room last night it was freaky to see all the available spots for low level lurking.

My family was visiting last week and there are Mexican blankets all over the floor, magazine strewn about at random, and of course furniture that will not be going anyplace anytime soon.

Thousands of the bastards could hide in the piano innards alone.

*Arg*

The thought of picking up a blankie for snuggles on the couch and sharing it with a scorpion is just not my idea of fun.

Or a nap on the sofa interrupted by a sneak attack.

Horrors.

So a trip to the store for death dust and more sonics is in order today.

Back into battle with the Scorpion King.

posted by Bohica at 11:13 AM