Ouch

Mar. 24, 2007

Ok, here's a quick story. The other day, as we were working on the greeting cards, a gust of wind came up and knocked a few freshly painted cards onto the patio. I was in the middle of sending my friend a text message, and reached for the flying cards. I didn't catch a single one, and in the process, dumped my phone into a large bucket of blue paint. It was fully submerged in the bucket, and I was sure it was ruined. After washing it off and taking it apart, my friend told me I should reinstall the chip or something, which would require digging around in one of my luggage bags for an old receipt, which contains some secret PIN apparently necessary to the process. I still don't really understand what he said.

Anyway, I was fishing around in my bag, looking for this piece of paper, when all of the sudden, POW!, extreme pain shot through my hand. Finally, I thought, my first scorpion bite. I ran to show my host dad, Don Victor, and he mumbled something unintelligible, like he always does to me (we're not exactly best buddies). I could feel the venom crawling up my arm, until it reached my armpit, where it stayed, along with the pain. My tongue started to feel a little numb, too. So I moved on from my odd host father and showed the sting to Nina Genia, my adoring host mother. She told me that we needed to hunt that thing down and kill it before it has babies. So, with the entire rest of the family looking on, we emptied out my three bags (in which I've been hiding and hoarding things I haven't wanted to share, things that, after this incident, are no longer secret nor horded. Good thing I had already taken out my bottle of scotch). The scorpion emerged after a few shakes of the bag, and I killed it with my flip flop in a moment of sweet revenge. I then reenacted the moment of the sting for your viewing pleasure, in the attached photos. We ended up finding two more little scorpions in various parts of the house. I'm scared to crawl in my bed. China says I have scorpions because I'm a cochino (pig) and I don't sweep my house correctly. I tend to agree with her.

So now I have a scorpion sting, a blue phone that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and a story to tell. The pain has faded and my hand is almost back to normal. Hope all's well in Los United.

-Benja