Poor Francis

As I was getting ready for bed yesterday I stepped on something that felt rubbery. I quickly looked down and saw something scurry under the bed. My heart pounding, I leaned down to see what it was. Thinking I'd see a mouse, I was quite surprised to see a scorpion.

Even though my stomach had just flipped upside down and my heart was jumping out of my ribcage, I ran to the other room to grab my camera. I jumped back onto the bed and dangled half of my body off as I held my camera. I was surprised to find the scorpion didn't move as I took picture after picture of mis-aimed photos trying to capture one that would prove what my foot had just touched.

For the next hour or so I huddled up on my bed, trying to imagine the scorpion hadn't just grown 10 times bigger and was preparing to leap out from under the bed and get me. When I flipped myself upside down to peak under the bed, I was a little disappointed to see the scorpion had vanished...dang it. And even though I had a hightened awareness of the rubbery-feeling my foot had just felt, I eventually fell asleep. It wasn't until Nathaniel came home and I was telling him about my run-in with the scorpion and how it was gone and somewhere else in our house that I started crying. Yes -- crying.

Fast forward a few hours and into the morning -- this morning.

As I puttered around the house eating my fruity cheerios I was very, very cautious of where I was stepping. Rushing to get out the door, I quickly grabbed my tennis shoes. Still paranoid I shook my shoe, waiting to see if anything would fall out before I put my shoe on.

I shook. Nothing fell.

I slipped my foot in, and started to pull on my shoestrings when I noticed something just felt wrong.

I quickly pulled my foot back out and shook again -- I was not too interested in shoving my hand into the dark un-known to see what was going on in there.

Satisfied that nothing had fallen out after my second attempt at shaking, I shoved my foot back in, thinking it must have just been my paranoid imagination.

No. Still wrong. Something was not right.

Foot back out. Hand in -- hand out! I screamed as the scorpion fell out and onto the couch.

Nathaniel leapt out of bed to the rescue, quickly scooped the scorpion up with a cup and tossed it out the door.

I stood there a little panicked and feeling much like I did last night. My hand and my foot very aware of the wrong, rubbery feeling they had just experienced.

Nathaniel walked back inside, and encouraged me to get my shoes on and leave for school. I just stood there trying to ignore the no-good-rubbery feeling. He sat down and held out his arms for me to sit with him.

I laughed as I reflected on how absolutely girly I had been. The poor scorpion was probably far more terrified than I was. And Nathaniel agreed.

So we imagined what it would be like for the poor scorpion -- which, of course, we named Francis. Poor Francis found this awesome cave-like place to live free of birds or snakes. Francis thought she had it made until this giant thing with wiggly things on the end attacked and stepped on her. And then to top it off, when she was hiding from the wiggly thing this strange apparatus came out of nowhere and there were all these flashes of light. Francis was so scared she couldn't move! So once the flashing was over and the wiggly thing seemed to disappear, Francis found a safe place to hide -- at least until the morning when the wiggly thing attacked again! Francis was so terrified when she came tumbling out of her hiding place that she just froze where she was, and before she knew it she was soaring through the air...

Oh...poor Francis.

And here she is:

Please ignore the nastiness that isn't Francis.

P.S.
I'm glad I didn't get stung. And I'm pretty sure Francis is a striped bark scorpion. Thank you Google images!

Always,