We’re on deadline, and everything came to a screeching halt, because there was A SCORPION in the production department. Veronica, the advertising department goddess, scooped it up in a box while I ran into a corner and hid.
The scorpion—which Arek the designer, who drinks too much Red Bull, named “Orland”—was taken outside and freed. Orland, who I should point out was HUGE and SCARY, will live to see another day, and scare the hell out of more people.
Do you think the mamby pamby journalists at The New York Times have to deal with things like this? I THINK NOT.
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2006.
If it was huge, it probably wasn’t the type of scorpion to really worry about (sorry, guys). In this area, at least, the smaller ones (bark scorpions, an unassuming yellow color) are the ones with the worst stings. Damn, I leave and all the excitement starts.
When I was 16, I was attacked by a bark scorpion. Yes, I mean “attacked.” It bit me 6 times, and then attached itself to my bag, and bit me AGAIN on the leg, as I staggered out of my friend’s house to go to the emergency room. Seven times that thing bit me. Scorpions are evil and malicious.
How’d it happen?
I was sleeping on the floor at my friend’s house in the foothills and it crawled into my sleeping bag. And then tried to hitch a ride on my duffel bag. Classic story. But that’s why I will never, even if you paid me, live in the foothills. That, and the fact that you have to drive everywhere.
I like that we have discussed scorpions far more than something actually important, like something political or whathaveyou…