Almost 30 Going On 13

A few days ago, I approached our walk-in closet and happened to look down, probably due to the inherent female subconscious tracking mechanism that constantly monitors surfaces for bugs. My effort was rewarded: right there on the carpet was a scorpion.

At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, so I stared at it for a second in shock. Then I did what any self-respecting married woman would do: I yelled for my husband to come over here RIGHT NOW because there’s a scorpion in the closet!, and then I ran out of the room.

My gallant knight retrieved some aluminum foil that I’d used for baking dinner and “took care of it.” He even, WITHOUT BEING ASKED, threw away the offensive package into the garbage can in the garage, not the one in the kitchen. This is one of the many reasons why I have the best husband in the world (see Profile).

But the tale is not yet over. Now, any venture into the closet, or really, anywhere around the house with the possible exception of the upstairs, requires shoes. Not necessarily tennis shoes (too much work) and certainly not flip flops (too flimsy), but my slip-on sandals with a decent heel. This way I can crush-a-bug if necessary, but removing the sandals doesn’t take up much time, as my pre-scorpion practice was to go barefoot whenever possible.

The sandals now walk me everywhere. If I want to read on the couch, I take them off and jump on the couch. At night, I shake them off and leap for the bed. Even though I had never participated in “lava-walking” in college, I almost felt like I was playing a perpetual game, just in my house and by myself. After a while, I identified the feeling of déjà vu that came over me as I did all this.

In junior high, I spent the night at a friend’s house, and she had rented the movie Little Monsters. That movie changed the course of my life forever. I had never seriously considered that there might be monsters under the bed. It was a hard reality to deal with that first night, since I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor (can monsters work around a sleeping bag?!), but as soon as I returned home, my years of extra bedtime exercise began. Every night, I made a running leap for the bed, hoping nothing would reach out and grab my ankle as I flew past.

Over time, of course, I outgrew this, with occasional regressions. Then in 2001, Pixar decided to produce Monsters, Inc., and I had to start all over again.

Though I will never possess my grandma’s skill of picking up a live/dying/dead mouse and throwing it outside, I did learn, as a single woman who lived alone, to handle the occasional roaches, spiders, and ant communities that came with the apartment amenities. But a scorpion, while certainly not a monster who sounds like Howie Mandel with bad makeup, is beyond my tolerance. [To relieve your mind, it was not (that I could tell in my brief, panicked view) a huge specimen with the frightening curved tail, but it was at least 1.5 inches long, which in female math translates to a foot and a half.]

Until the pest control “technician” comes next week to address the problem, apparently only on the OUTSIDE of the house, I will endeavor to channel my adolescent bed-leaping exercises into adult exercise on the treadmill. However, the sandals stay on.