The Plague

So, I had a little too much time on my hands for this photo.  I'm pretty bummed though because to get anything cool to do to your photo you have to pay the premium price.  I don't need one more thing I have to pay for, so I'm stuck with the cheesy beach props for my new pet.  This little guy was the 3rd scorpion either in my house or just outside the house in a 2 -3 week period.   The first one was discovered in the swimming pool dead.  Surprisingly,  knowing that it is dead does nothing to make it any less creepy.  The 2nd one was discovered in my house.  Right on the floor in a walkway.  Just when I thought a scorpion couldn't get anymore creepy, it did.  How did he get in my house!  Is it like finding a cockroach...there's never just one?  My first attempt at ridding this creature from the house was to trap it in a cup and then do what with it, I'm not sure.  I really don't think releasing it back into the wild was part of my plan, but I was goin with it.  Well, turns out they are pretty fast and he took off onto the carpet and under the couch!  Crap, crap and double crap!  I lost a millipede in my bedroom a month ago and spent forever tearing up my room looking for it and eventually had to give up and talk myself out of a mental breakdown over the fact that now I was fully aware that I was sharing my room with a millipede!  So, I was not about to loose this scorpion under my couch only to discover it one night when it was playing with my toes.   Oh, no!  Was not going to happen.  I pushed back the couch and armed myself with the vacuum hose and got my eagle eyes on because they are translucent.  It wasn't looking like I was going to find him for a bit, but then I spotted him and quickly sucked him up sending him to a dust filled death.  After this bit of trauma that went down in front of the kids, a few nights later when my husband and I went out through the garage to take our dogs for a walk....but what should I see, a very translucent scorpion staring up at me.  It was dark outside and I only happened to spot it because Nate was carrying a flashlight.  It was hanging out right on the threshold of the garage.  Jared ran out when he heard me yell, scorpion.  This time we had a more brutal approach.  Jared grabbed the shovel and we set about trying to cut the thing in half.  We succeeded. 

  

I'm not sure what is going on.  We have lived in this house for 3 1/2 years and have only spotted 1 other scorpion (although my kids tell me they have seen a couple more that I didn't know about).  I am thinking we must have some sort of plague going on here.  I'm about to look up what eats scorpions and make sure that I have one of them hanging around my house.  It can get pretty interesting living in the desert.  We have tarantulas, lots of black widows, millipedes in abundance and we get to watch the roadrunner cartoon play out each morning on the way to the bus stop.... well kind of.  We see this one particular coyote nearly every morning who we named wile e and we see roadrunners too.  We keep checking the mesa for crates of dynamite and listen for the "meep, meep"  when the roadrunner outsmarts the coyote, but surprisingly.... roadrunners make no sound and they are very small!