Still shuddering.

My shoulders convulsively shoot up to my ears every time I replay this in my mind...about an hour ago my dog yelped and jumped up off the place he was laying on the floor in our living room (the spot on the floor that's about 3 feet from where my baby plays on the floor).  His reaction to whatever had happened made me immediately jump to the correct conclusion...he was stung...by a scorpion.  Those evil horrible things that are possibly worse than bees because of their more venomous reputations (but luckily not as horrible in that they can't fly).  And there it was, blending in oh so cleverly with our ugly carpet.  The mother f'ing Arizona Bark Scorpion.  Doesn't even deserve the proper noun capital letters.  Come to think of it, it's probably not supposed to have the capitals...whatever.

My poor, brave, awesome lab/husky mix took one for the team.  If he hadn't been stung, I never would have seen that evil spawn of the devil crawling along like an invisible terrorist.  In my blind fear I decided I would be able to kill it using the remote control in my hand (it was one of those fancy new DirecTV ones that looks like a space pod or something broken off the side of a Star Trek toy ship).  The rounded curves only pissed off the scorpion and it started running back and forth trying to attack. Evil bastard.  So then I realized my rubber-soled slippers were right there next to me (not on my feet!! and also...why didn't I choose them as a weapon first??).  I smeared that son of a bitch all over our carpet.  But I haven't rested easy...no, not at all.  I've had the blacklight within arms reach ever since.  I might never walk around this house without it again.  Checked both girls' rooms, clear from as much as I could inspect (my older daughter has a habit of extreme messiness).  Checked every other square foot of the house just short of rifling through toy boxes and I didn't see another one, thankfully.  And I'm finally coming down from my adrenaline/fear high.  Please, please, please don't let my daughters ever get stung by one of those sinister creatures.

And my poor 9 month old was just getting ready to crawl...sorry kiddo, pack n' play and highchair for the rest of your babyhood.

I hate bees, snakes, wasps, fire ants and currently worst of all...scorpions.  SHUDDER.

Oh...and my hero dog seems to be doing alright..  He weighs 81 pounds so I'm not too worried about him. Other than some apparent mild discomfort, he is acting totally normal.  Poor guy...love you Ike.