I woke at 6:00a.m. with a headache. I chalked it up to the couple of glasses of beer I had the night previous at a Korean BBQ joint in Koreatown with some friends. Not a shameful amount, I just hadn’t had a beer in forever and thought maybe my body didn’t know how to process it.

Bleary-eyed I got myself out of bed to get some Advil, filled with the hope that that little adobe-colored pill would do its magic and I could fall back to sleep. Figuring since I was up I might as well pee, I walked into the bathroom and immediately noticed, through my blurry, pinhole vision, a tiny scorpion on the bathroom floor. I’m on the lookout these days as scorpions come out, and into our house, when it gets hot. And also when Mark is out of town. I’m conveniently always hit with scorpions when Mark is M.I.A.

I am brave in my not-enough-sleep and barely-can-see haze and march into the kitchen to look for a plastic cup in which to cover the scorpion and a magazine in which to scoop it on to with said cup. I walk by the front door and prop it open so I can use my elbow to open it when I come back by with the aforementioned trapped intruder. My dog, Theo, starts to panic – why is she opening the front door? Is she leaving us? I walk into the bathroom and without much fanfare, nor my usual backs and forths, hyperventilating, or cursing, trap the scorpion under the lime green outdoor party cup that we really only use for indoor day to day events, and slide it over the magazine creating a delusional vacuum seal. Using all my bicep power to keep the scorpion from escaping, I head to the front door, elbow it open, walk just two steps forward to hit the cup against the side of our walkway so the scorpion can fall into the lush hillside of ivy below when I hear the door slam behind me. And I suddenly realize it’s locked. 6:00a.m. in my yellow cotton tank top and black and white butterfly silk sleep shorts. “No no no no no,” I hear myself say and am sorry I’m probably worrying Theo more who is surely listening through the bedroom windows. I realize it’s gardener day and wouldn’t that be a hoot if I were outside in my sleep get-up when they arrived at 7:00a.m.

Then, still blurry eyed, I remember and hope, there is a spare key in the carport. I jam over, open the cabinet filled with rags, and a bike pump, and also spiderwebs, find the keys and hightail it back into the house. I feel triumphant. I finally get my Advil. Then I pee. Before falling back to sleep I let myself consider that a mama scorpion is probably somewhere in the house and that I left the cup and magazine outside while rummaging for the key so I’m going to have to get my safety kit back together.

The End

Except to say, please enjoy this Scorpions video…