Last Saturday night my husband and I were invited to spend the night at the country home of a friend. We had spent the better part of the day at Baby's university and that evening we joined with 86,000 of our closest friends to watch the football game and cheer the school on to victory. As we drove through the night exhausted and grateful for a nearby bed, we were two happy campers.
There are so many stars in the sky. I don't really see them in the city. Sure I go out and check on them, but in the suburbs only the biggest and brightest are visible. I love the night sky in the country. I stood looking upward trying to commit to memory the beauty of the night.
Well after midnight, we settled in for a quick sleep, everyone had to return to Fort Worth early in the morning so we planned to sleep until 6-ish and leave for the city no later than 7 a.m.
The view from our bed was so wonderful I didn't want to take off my glasses. The north and south walls are almost all windows and there were two skylights above us. Eventually, exhaustion took over and I put my glasses on the side table and went to sleep. Just about 4 a.m. I woke up with a start - I felt a burning sensation just below my right elbow as I was sliding my arm under my pillow. I grabbed my glasses and my phone and flipped over the pillow to see what my attacker was. Nothing. I kept searching with my phone - still my flip phone (I'm working on that) and eventually I reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Nothing. My arm sort of throbbed and felt warm - this is Texas, I was thinking rattlesnake or killer bee- my imagination was starting to get the best of me. I made enough noise to wake up Mr. Joy & Comfort and, as I told him what happened and he looked at my arm, I got the feeling he thought a large mosquito had gotten me.
Frustrated that no monster could be found, I flipped on the overhead light and pulled at the covers, nothing. Mr. J&C was hinting maybe we should go back to sleep as he pulled the covers all the way to the end of the bed.
There, were I would have put my feet if I had gotten back into bed, was a scorpion. Before I could say "I told you something stung me!" My husband grabbed his shoe and beat the little monster to death. (No pictures - sorry, he was too quick for me to get a 'living' picture. The flatten creature looked so pathetic I was sure PETA would complain. Also, I didn't Google a photo of one because I really don't want to see another one. Thank You.)
I washed my arm while he put the carcase in a plastic bag to show our host in the morning. He insisted I use a bit of antibiotic ointment and I took an antihistamine. My arm got just a bit puffy and red around the sting area, I survived.
I couldn't go back to sleep. Seeing that it was a scorpion made me want to throw-up. They are the stuff of scary movies and creepy crawlies that can hurt people... they can be a real danger - unlike the mystery diseases that drug commercials promise to save us from - only to finish with the legal disclaimers of side effects, many worse than the original disease. This is where I tell all the drug companies out there, "Hey, when your commercials come on I change the channel. Sometimes I don't go back to what I was watching." Life is tough enough without being threaten into buying a product. Sorry, don't get me started with what is wrong with television.
An hour or so later, our shocked host was apologizing as if he had been the one to hurt me. I had calmed down by the time he got up and accepted what had happened. In fact, the thoughts racing through my brain at this time included a lot of thanksgiving that I had been stung in the arm and not on my face, don't know if that is a vanity thing or I just worry about my eyes and brain more than the next person.
I'm happy to report there were no side effects. I will admire the moon from my own backyard. Mr. J&C and I plan to sleep in our bed this Saturday night (after he's checked it for creepy crawlies).
Wisdom... maybe it does come with age.
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