OMG OMG THERES A HUGE ASS SPIDER ON THE WALL OF MY BEDROOM!!! will someone come over and kill for me? it's too big forme to kill. If it moves i'm going to freak out! someone please asap! this is a really big man eating spider! or know of someone who will come to my house and kill a spider for me
I am really ready to go back to work, I'm just saying.
Killing a Scorpion
During my two years in the dry, flat wasteland of Oklahoma I was dreadfully scared that I would eventually have to kill a giant spider. It was pretty much my second biggest fear while I was there. The first of course was that I would look outside one day, realize that I could see for miles and miles and miles and miles, and become completely overwhelmed and loose my mind.
Thankfully, I never did have to kill a giant spider. I saw a bunch of them, but to be honest they are pretty darn easy to avoid if you want. Tarantulas and other very large bugs do not really sneak into houses much because they are the size of a small animal. I’d say chances of having one in your house are about as good as the chances of finding a squirrel in your house. I did however have one unfortunate run in with a scorpion while babysitting.
It is probably important to review some facts first. I grew up in the middle of now where in cold, frosty, wonderfully sheltered, New Hampshire. In New Hampshire it is too cold 6 months out of the year to have bugs and the bugs that come out in the summer die before they can grow huge and terrifying. The best part about New Hampshire, or all of New England really, is the bugs that do live here are essentially harmless. The hornets and such sting, mosquitoes bite, and the horse flies take menacingly huge chunks of flesh home to feed their family (if you’ve ever been bitten by a horse fly, you know what I am saying. But for clarification I added a picture of a horse fly stealing some guys arm.)
Nothing is really poisonous. A few snakes are, but you have to really be looking for them to find them. My fear of bugs pre-Oklahoma was purely that they look icky, then suddenly I had to remember that they could also kill or injury me as well. This is why I was pretty terrified the day I had to kill a scorpion.
I had read up on scorpions and other bugs in OK enough to know that brown scorpions (at least where I lived, do not take this knowledge and go around picking up scorpions) are not poisonous. That being said, their stingers are HUGE! I thought about stepping on it but I was wearing flip-flops and I am certain the stinger would have pierced straight through the flip-flop’s sole. (Amusing unintentional pun) So I asked the boy(T) I was babysitting how to kill them. He told me to sweep it into a dust pan and flush it down the toilet.
I was incredibly skeptical about this approach, but I decided to at least make an attempt so I ask T to bring me the dust pan and broom. Unwilling to miss the action of me trying to kill the beast, he darted around the room and returned with a Styrofoam bowl and a wiffle bat.
“T! Where is the broom?”
“I don’t know where we keep the broom”
“Right next to all the shoes and backpacks!!!!” The whole time we are talking I am keeping my eye on scorpion.
“I don’t want to get it I’m scared”
I realized that I was at the mercy of a six year old and a bug with a giant nail for an appendage, so I decided to give it a shot. As soon as I started to creep toward the scorpion it took off. That’s when I learned that scorpions are also very, very quick. I suddenly knew that there was no way I could carry it to the toilet before it ran out of the Styrofoam bowl and stung me. Trying to think fast on my feet I threw the Styrofoam bowl in hopes that it would miraculously fly to exactly where the evil insect was and capture it for me.
My senior year of high school I decided to take Intro to Art instead of Physics. This Throwing the bowl, I suddenly figured out why physics is useful. Perhaps, if I taken physic, I would have realized that throwing anything made of Styrofoam, but especially something bowl shaped, will result in it floating delicately to the floor about an inch from where I threw it. At any rate, that most certainly did not catch the scorpion and even if it had, the stupid thing could have crawled right out from under it.
It was clearly time to retreat. “T, watch the scorpion, I’m going to go get something big to squish it with.” I demanded. I ran to a different room where I found one thing that looked suitable for my purposes, but it was a very large collection of Dr. Suess books and using it for such gross business seemed so wrong. I thought about it for a minute sadly, decided the cause was just and turned around to end this once and for all, when I bumped right into T. “BAH! T! What are you doing?”
“I wanted to see what you were doing.”
“Where’s the scorpion?”
“ I think it’s still there.”
It wasn’t.
I spend the better part of the day looking around that room to make sure the scorpion wasn’t there. I never did find it. I found it his family’s sweeping method involved sweeping them into their backs because apparently they have a hard time righting themselves when this happens. I’m totally bumped that I didn’t kill the scorpion but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
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