Millipedes, Spiders, and SCORPIONS!

I hate bugs. I hate spiders. I hate all things that are creepy and crawly. If it is skittering across the floor you can bet that I am either screaming or attempting to kill it. I live in Florida, so you can bet that I do a lot of screaming (not in a good way, in an OMFG KILL IT way). I grew up in Idaho: land of zero bugs. I remember mosquitoes, lady bugs, potato bugs, and the occasional teeny spider (which I made a big deal of). I didn't even realize how horrifying skittering insects could be. In 2003, shortly after we moved to Florida, I was putting on a pair of tennis shoes and they didn't fit just right. I was thinking that there was something in them, like a piece of paper or some sock lint, but I was so horribly wrong. As I was reaching in to grab it, it grabbed me back! I pulled my hand out very fast and saw there was a millipede holding onto my finger for dear life.

Another notable bug experience was early 2008 while using the sewing table. I looked down and saw a spider that had to be near the size of my hand (see the blurry picture above, I didn't dare get close to it). That is the biggest spider I have ever seen in Florida.

The picture to my left is of a spider that was right outside the front door of the house. I was literally frozen in place because I was so scared. That spider was probably about the size of my palm.

But none of these stories even come close to the horror I experienced tonight while trying to put some laundry in the washer. There I am just pulling out a pair of pants from the bottom of my hamper and I see something. That something was a 3" long scorpion. This scorpion has been in my laundry hamper for at least 1 week and a half under all of my clothes. It has been there, which means that at some point in time it was crawling on my wall, crawling all over tall surfaces, or even CRAWLING ON ME!!



I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack. I cannot believe there was a scorpion in my laundry!As soon as I screamed about it, the entire family rushed in with cameras and we had a mini photoshoot with a scorpion that was skittering across the garage floor.