Scorpions. Not the band.

I got to thinking this morning about spiders. It was another one of my 5am, sitting in the glider with a doodlebug on my lap while eating his morning meal, mind-wandering moments. I was barefoot and I started having an irrational fear that a big spider was going to suddenly crawl out from under the chair, scramble its way up onto my foot and plant sharp, barbed and poisonous fangs into my skin. I immediately shook my feet, just to make sure there wasn't anything on me and stomped a few times for peace of mind.

Then after the giant tarantulas I thought of scorpions. Scorpions are quite possibly the only bugs I despise (and fear) more than spiders. I grew up in the woods and there were often wolf spiders on my bedroom wall that could only have grown that large from taking 'roids in Arachnidia High. Since they were too large for any sane individual that valued their life to squish with a tissue, my mom would get the vacuum out and send them to their quick and certain death. I thought they were the most vile creatures ever. That is, until I lived in Florida and came face to face - literally - with scorpions. There are no scorpions in Pennsylvania. You have to go to a pet store to find them, or to a crazy friend's house. Not so in Florida. Of course I didn't know that they lived in Florida, naive as I was, so imagine my horror when the first day I lived there I sat down on the stoop outside my apartment, lit up a cigarette, took a deep breath of plumeria-scented air and glanced to the fence beside me to see a scorpion RIGHT THERE looking back at me. I screamed. I did a dance. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was terrified, the heebie-jeebies were running all up and down my spine and I probably looked crazy to my new neighbors. As time went on, I learned that the only thing worse than stepping on a large spider is stepping on any size scorpion. They crunch. Loudly. And ugh, the mess.

Back to feeding Asher in the dark. As if I'm not grossed out enough by the thought of a spider attacking me, now I'm worried that a scorpion will. Even though I know there aren't any scorpions here and I've never seen a spider bigger than a nickel in our house. I know they're out there, waiting for the right moment when I'm not suspecting them and they'll GET ME. All rational thinking eludes me when I'm half asleep and sitting in the dark.

Them and the zombies.

Why don't I think about ponies and unicorns and cotton candy?? Why has my imagination always been filled with horrors and the macabre? As if I don't have enough to think about, what with the economy in the shitter like it is, I also have to think about imaginary monsters that aren't even there. Maybe it is a manifestation of some sort of my subconscious fears. Maybe I need medication.