"Well, I guess I'm a hypocrite," I replied to her. "I'm biased against scorpions."
And it's true. Maybe there is no logic behind my fear that if I don't kill them they will kill me, but I cannot fall asleep at night knowing that there is a scorpion wandering around the house, undead. And we tend to have such “visits” from time to time in the house we have been living in for the past 13 years. I am a much braver person now than I was when we first moved in and I owe it mainly to all the scorpions I have had to kill (rest in peace). It was a skill I had to develop and master, and you can too, if you follow these basic guidelines:
1. Never dig the ground in the summer. My first encounter with scorpions was when I was around six years old. Three friends of mine and I were digging the sand when suddenly a black insect with "arms" like those of a crab and a long hook-shaped tail crawled out of the hole we had dug. Two or three smaller ones crawled out too and followed the bigger one like ducks in a row. You can avoid going through this trauma simply by resisting the urge to dig the ground.
2. Scorpions hunt in packs. Either that, or they had picked a very unfortunate spot for a family picnic. After being greeted by five scorpions of various sizes along the route from the porch to the shoe rack, me and my visiting friend ran to the bathroom, yelling and clinging to each other, and locked the door. We waited as my mom and her friend Rosie, who had walked in right behind us, followed our trail and squashed the scorpions in the order we had discovered them. We only unlocked the door and stepped out when the last of them had been eradicated. Which leads me to my next point:
3. Locking the door can help. Of course, it won't actually stop the scorpion from continuing its regular route and walking in from under your door, but it might temporarily help you believe you are safe.
4. Cover every inch of your body, because the scorpion can and will detect any open area and send shooting venoms to that spot. Although there was nothing special about that one summer day, my mom and Rosie decided that the day had come for me to learn to kill scorpions on my own (but, really, it was the couch that was too comfortable). I was walking up the stairs to my room when I was greeted by a large scorpion. I squealed for help, but all I received were words of encouragement. They cheered me on and said they believed in me and that I would be "just fine.” I stood there frozen with my eyes wide open in horror. I was too scared to kill it. I was too scared to look away in case it disappeared. And I was too scared to flinch in case it got scared and sprang on me. After over 15 minutes of standing there with my breath almost held, I realized I couldn't keep doing that for the rest of the night. Despite the heat, I sprinted back downstairs to put on my boots, wore a hoodie, gloves, a hat, and covered my face with a scarf. I wore another pair of boots on my hands in order to stomp the scorpion with it. I couldn't take any chances. Who knows, the precautions I took that day might be the reason I’m still alive.
5. Your first murder comes with a cost. The guilt. I had never killed a scorpion before that day. It had been a completely different experience to watch others do it. But now I felt the blood of the tiny creature under my boots. The process of walking down the stairs and carrying up the broom with which I would gather it up felt like a silent funeral march. I didn’t know how my heart would ever sing again after what I had done.
6. Do not sweep up the scorpion right away. Because, apparently, they have one last scare prepared for you. It was my first experience gathering up the corps of a scorpion. I barely touched it with the broom when its body flinched. I screamed and ran for the closest hill. The good side of this is that the fright reminds you of why you had to kill the scorpion in the first place and somewhat deals with the issue of guilt. Until you watch it going down the drain and wonder if you flushed down the father of a newly formed family. About the flinching, someone later explained to me that for a few seconds after they die, their nerve endings are still active and might react if touched. Scorpions don’t resurrect after all. Nonetheless, I have come to the conclusion that it is wiser to wait a few minutes before disturbing the remains and also to…
7. Flush it down the toilet. Never throw it in the trash. It is what my mom always instructed me to do, although I don’t think she believes in the resurrection of scorpions any more than I do. But there is something much more permanent and comforting about flushing them down the toilet, as opposed to knowing they’re still in the house, dead or alive. And it would be much harder for them to find their way back to the house if they did resurrect.
8. Relax during the winter, because apparently that's when scorpions hibernate. Except when they don't.
"If you see a scorpion, just call me," I said and laughed. We all found that funny until it actually happened.
I was washing the dishes when I heard screaming from the second floor. I rushed upstairs to find one of the girls jumping around, with a scorpion hanging onto her sandal. The other girls had gathered around, screaming, but too scared to do anything. It happened so fast that it was over before I realized it: I marched into the center of their circle, rescued the girl from the scorpion on her shoe, and squashed the poor creature with my own. I hadn't even had the chance to get scared, because I was so focused on saving our guests. They still remember me as a hero.
10. Not killing the scorpion to take revenge from someone else will harm you equally. As I was walking up the stairs to my room, once again I came across a scorpion on one of the steps. As expected, I squealed for help, but by now Rosie and my mom had gotten into the very convenient habit of telling me it was time for me to overcome my fear of scorpions and kill it myself.
“If we keep coming to your rescue, you will never learn,” one of them yelled over the background of the TV. I couldn’t even remember the last time they had come “to my rescue.”
“What will you do one day when you are home alone?” As if they were doing this for humanitarian purposes. I had had enough. I decided not to kill the scorpion as revenge. I somehow circled the scorpion and fled to my room. I don't know about my mom and Rosie, but I sure as hell didn't sleep that night.
11. There is always someone bigger taking care of you. As much as your mom and Rosie care about you not dying, sometimes the comfort of the couch after a long day takes over. And so, you learn to be grateful for all the times you accidently get saved. However, too many coincidences make you wonder if they are coincidences at all. There are only two I remember, but there have been so many instances of "accidently" discovering a scorpion and killing it that I no longer think they were lucky coincidences.
My mom wakes up every night, sometimes a few times a night, and follows her usual route to the bathroom and back. "I never turn on the light," she was telling me once, "But this one time, I cannot explain why, I decided to turn on the bedroom light before walking out of it. Before I even realized what I was doing, the light was on and right next to my toe was a scorpion."
The other incident I remember happened to me when I opened the door to my room and, without even thinking about it, I turned around to look right at the corner where the door and the wall meet. And there, curled up in the corner, was a scorpion I would have never noticed unless I had specifically looked there. Usually, when I open the door, I look at my room and walk straight into it. But the fact that that one time my mom turned on the light and that that one time I looked straight at the corner, and all those other instances I don't remember remind me of how taken care of we are by someone that can see even in the dark.
12. Which can also help you feel less guilty about killing them. If you think about it, if the creator of scorpions aids you in killing scorpions then a) they really must be dangerous b) maybe it's not such a big crime after all c) he must have a better plan for their life. So, you can rest assured that killing a scorpion before it kills you might not be such a bad idea after all.
There you have it, my friend. Of course, my first and foremost wish to you is that you will never come across a scorpion. But, considering that you are reading this article, my guess is that you have, and that they scare you. In that case, I do hope that you found the steps I have provided useful. The two main things that have helped me are, first of all, trusting in the protection of the one that knows the location of every single scorpion that walks this earth, and, second of all, believing that scorpions go to Heaven after they die. The idea of spending eternity with little ghost scorpions (who will probably remember who killed them) might not be the most comforting one, but it might temporarily help with the guilt of killing them. After all, if you are anything like me, you might admit to having pondered whether killing the scorpion and suffering in guilt is worse than just letting it kill you. If so, I believe that my last two points will be most useful to you and might even save you from a needless self-sacrifice.
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