SCORPION!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. You can't live this close to the desert and not have close encounters with desert creatures, though some, I certainly prefer not to! Definitely not with the ones that can hurt you.

But....there he was.... on my bathroom floor.....a scorpion! I didn't realize that's what it was right away as I've never seen one that small. I just noticed a speck on the floor that my eye kept going back to because something didn't seem right about it. At first I thought it was just a tiny dust bunny but finally I put on my reading glasses, bent down and sure enough, a teeny, tiny scorpion.

I do mean tiny! He was no bigger than the tip of my little finger.

His size sent me into a tizzy, 'assuming' he was a hatchling and there could be more. I grabbed the first thing I could get and smashed it soundly with the back of my hairbrush. I immediately went inspecting the walls all over the house and madly vacumming the carpets. A call to my pest control company has them scheduled for spraying this week. Can't be soon enough and shame on me for not getting it done before I returned two weeks ago.

Conversations with my neighbors tell me that my fears about it being newly hatched, or however they are born, is probably unfounded as the tiny ones are just a different variety. Apparently the 'sting' of those smalls ones is much more virulent than the larger cousins. That is something I don't want to learn first hand!

My resolve not to go barefoot is revived however much I enjoy it. However, even that is not always a solution as one of my neighbors was stung while taking a shower!

I've heard it said that there is nothing in this desert that won't sting, bite or prick you. Even so, it is still beautiful here, and to enjoy it to the fullest, you just have to be careful!