Dreams of Scorpions
The maid ran upstairs, "Don Robert, otro scorpio!" I picked up a handy shoe, belatedly shook it out to make sure it didn't contain part of an advance column, and proceeded downstairs. This would be number three in the past couple of weeks and I figured I now had to do something about it.
I got to the bottom of the stairs and my girlfriend gave me a look. She had a broom in her hand and as I looked to where she was pointing it I realized I had just come within inches of it. The offending critter was on stair number three minding its own business hiding behind a potted plant. The broom moved swiftly, and faster than I could open my mouth to say "No!" a squirrelly scorpion was snapping its claws and spinning at my feet.
Why I used the shoe in my hand instead of my flip-flop clad foot, wasting precious milliseconds as I bent down to swat at it, I don't know. But it was even bigger than the last one, evil black with stinger twitching- now mush. "Why did you do that?" I yelled. In moments of excitement I forget she doesn't speak English. "Porque?" I tried as she gave me a shit look and started jabbering something en Español and the maid went to get something to clean up the mess.
It's bad enough to see one of these things coming at you under its own steam, to have one swatted at you from your significant other brings up all kinds of unconscious taboos. She is, of course, a Scorpio herself, and one wonders what sort of kinship she feels with the stinging little critters. I had to let it slide as I went upstairs for the local yellow pages.
I was having no luck guessing what they would call an exterminator down in these parts until as I shut the book, I caught a glimpse of little bug drawings. Fumagadores or something like that, and then I saw the drawing of a scorpion. Bingo! They would be by around three-ish.
I had spent some time on the internet looking up scorpions, and decided to spend some more. The scorpion most common to Costa Rica is the yellow one, with a sting similar to that of a wasp, though it can commonly cause partial paralysis and make your tongue swell. If you're allergic of course, it can be much worse. This didn't help my frame of mind as, number one: I'm quite terrified of wasps above all other airborne creatures; and two, my scorpions were black.
As with all other locals that I mentioned this to, the exterminator made that face, the one where the lips purse together as air is expelled, the eyes sort of squint, as if they're imagining foul things, followed by a slow head shake. "Yeah, they're bad." He said as his masked companion headed up the stairs with the jug of poison. "We buy our product in the United States and is approved by the EPA." I said I'd rather have the black market stuff if it would kill them faster.
They sprayed the whole house, top to bottom. One of the things I learned during my research was that scorpions like to climb. They are members of the arachnid family with eight legs. I had spent the last week looking down a lot as I walked around the house, and I realized this would be useless were one to climb up on the ceiling and drop into my lap. The Chinese/Costa Rican exterminator affirmed that, yes, they are very good climbers. I made them spray more.
There are more than a few Chinese and Costa Ricans of Chinese descent around these parts. I have a few Asian themed items around the house, including some used for Feng Shui. He noticed them and we had a nice chat about that, and he noticed some rainbow reflections on the walls and ceilings from the glass in my coffee table, and said it was good luck. I’m also building a fountain under the stairwell (the rocks I'm using of course are favorite hideouts for scorpions. Yes we sprayed them well) which he heartily approved of.
After, the crew left, the maid left, and the girlfriend went to the gym. I tried to take a nap. I dreamt of scorpions.
