brown scorpion, non-lethal

It goes in cycles. I go barefoot for a while. Then tonight I saw a small scorpion in the kitchen, smashed it with a frying pan, and then despite local custom in Thailand which decrees this filthy, I now wear flipflops all the time inside. That’s until I get lazy and forget. Then the cycle repeats.

A friend stepped on one of these on her balcony. She didn’t have her glasses on, and it looked like a pale bit of wood. Her leg swelled up painfully, hideously and quickly: locals plastered her with herbs that gradually seemed to do the trick. She was soon fine.

Wear shoes, wear glasses. And, read up a bit…..

A non-lethal scorpion can give you elephant leg

It’s only 2cm long, is not lethal, but its sting would make your leg swell up like an elephant’s. The one I smashed with the frying pan was spread all over the bottom of the pan, and those remains were later fried off, sorry, respectfully cremated on the stove, underneath where eggs were scrambling.

Then I saw a second scorpion, the very next day?! Frying pan, whack! Oh wait, it was just a bit of brown cotton thread. Maybe I’m a little jumpy.

Lizards are no use at all

This place is crawling with big fat lizards, so why aren’t they eating all the scorpions?

1) There’s plenty else to eat, that isn’t venomous
2) They prefer mosquitoes
3) If they eat their own young, why am I expecting anything reasonable from a reptile brain?

The reviews are in

I had some marvelous reactions from readers:

One saw a white scorpion in Florida. I had no idea there were such things. That seemed freaky.

One was stung by a scorpion this exact colour in her dream the other week and her hand swelled up just as described, which to me was even freakier.

One guy living in San Francisco, woke up in bed in the middle of the night, feeling something-or-other, pulled back the sheets and found a half dozen alongside of him.

And in conclusion

For freakiness, I think we can all agree that last story is the ghastly winner.

And so, the saga continues, as does Mother Nature and all of us who get in her way.

photo credit: http://s249.photobucket.com/user/fiddleheadpa/media/img-0145.jpg.html