I, Tarrah Macdonald, have killed my first Scorpion.
Since arriving here in Malawi, I have heard about these mythical beasts from everyone who has spent any amount of time here. Ranging from gigantic ones, larger than a large man’s foot, crawling into offices during work hours, to little teeny tiny guys who deliver lethal bites that send paralyzing pain shooting through your body for hours.
I have, therefore, been casually careful about shaking out my clothes before putting them on, and occasionally remember to check my shoes before wearing them.
I will be a whole lot more careful from now on!
Ok, so here in Malawi we have a range of exotic, and really quite beautiful, insects and spiders. Far from being afraid of them, I have actually grown quite fond of them, and everyone here loves looks at them up close to admire nature’s beautiful designs.
One day as my roomie and I were working away on the Kondi, I opened up a dust covered binder of the girl’s past work, to find what I thought was a little wee beetle snuggled in the spine.
“Ooooo, look at this funky little cutey!”, I exclaimed, as I put my nose right level with his little bod, to get a closer look.
This was when I noticed his 6 little legs, and the suspicious looking, upward-curling tail coming from his behind.
“Ummmm…. ChiPallyWally…. What do scorpions look like?”
“Not sure…. I’ve not actually seen one yet…” she replied casually, not even bothering to glance up from her work.
“gulp, gulp… ummm… do you think they look like this?”
We looked at each other wide-eyed, then slowly backed away from the coffee table as we discussed our course of action…
“Maybe its dead? Its not moving…”
“Well we’re not leaving it just in case!”
“And we can’t just toss it in the garden! It will come back for us! Or the dogs!”
“Ok, I will just go and get my shoe….”
At this point I snuck into the house to get my trainers, which I casually slid half way on my feet. Then, confidant that he was dead, as he still had not moved, I gently picked up the open binder to carry to the garden.
“Waaaaahhhhyhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! He’s alive and MOVING!!!!”
I screamed as he made a mad dash across the open cover and leapt through the hole, falling past my bare legs to land just beside my partly-shoed feet.
He turned to face us, stinger posed and ready, and I felt like I was in an arena with an armed gladiator, not frozen on my sunshiney Kondi with a scorpion the size of a penny.
“Killlllll it!!!!”, Pally shouted encouragingly, as she huddled across the Kondi in her chair.
Stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp X55.
I fully expected one of two things to happen:
a) The scorpion to jump back to life and pounce when I least expected.
b) Venom to have punctured my shoe and slowly seep through my toes and up to my heart, resulting in a slow and painful death.
Clearly, neither of these things came to pass, and we swept him farrrrr into the garden where he would be of no harm to anyone.
And that is the tale of how ChiPallyWally and I bravely massacred our first scorpion.
The End.
Or was it?
There was a hysterical ending to this story, when a friend of ours came to visit this weekend. The pile of binders (one of which contained the terrifying beast) are piled in our living room up against the window.
A, having heard the tale of the scorpion, casually asked “So where was this scorpion anyways?”, as she swung her legs up on the window sill, her bottom centimetres away from the pile of binders….
“Ummmm…..”
Bah hahahahahhahahaha
When we informed her, the look on her face, and the speed of her reflexes, were a sight to behold.
Since arriving here in Malawi, I have heard about these mythical beasts from everyone who has spent any amount of time here. Ranging from gigantic ones, larger than a large man’s foot, crawling into offices during work hours, to little teeny tiny guys who deliver lethal bites that send paralyzing pain shooting through your body for hours.
I have, therefore, been casually careful about shaking out my clothes before putting them on, and occasionally remember to check my shoes before wearing them.
I will be a whole lot more careful from now on!
Ok, so here in Malawi we have a range of exotic, and really quite beautiful, insects and spiders. Far from being afraid of them, I have actually grown quite fond of them, and everyone here loves looks at them up close to admire nature’s beautiful designs.
One day as my roomie and I were working away on the Kondi, I opened up a dust covered binder of the girl’s past work, to find what I thought was a little wee beetle snuggled in the spine.
“Ooooo, look at this funky little cutey!”, I exclaimed, as I put my nose right level with his little bod, to get a closer look.
This was when I noticed his 6 little legs, and the suspicious looking, upward-curling tail coming from his behind.
“Ummmm…. ChiPallyWally…. What do scorpions look like?”
“Not sure…. I’ve not actually seen one yet…” she replied casually, not even bothering to glance up from her work.
“gulp, gulp… ummm… do you think they look like this?”
We looked at each other wide-eyed, then slowly backed away from the coffee table as we discussed our course of action…
“Maybe its dead? Its not moving…”
“Well we’re not leaving it just in case!”
“And we can’t just toss it in the garden! It will come back for us! Or the dogs!”
“Ok, I will just go and get my shoe….”
At this point I snuck into the house to get my trainers, which I casually slid half way on my feet. Then, confidant that he was dead, as he still had not moved, I gently picked up the open binder to carry to the garden.
“Waaaaahhhhyhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! He’s alive and MOVING!!!!”
I screamed as he made a mad dash across the open cover and leapt through the hole, falling past my bare legs to land just beside my partly-shoed feet.
He turned to face us, stinger posed and ready, and I felt like I was in an arena with an armed gladiator, not frozen on my sunshiney Kondi with a scorpion the size of a penny.
“Killlllll it!!!!”, Pally shouted encouragingly, as she huddled across the Kondi in her chair.
Stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp X55.
I fully expected one of two things to happen:
a) The scorpion to jump back to life and pounce when I least expected.
b) Venom to have punctured my shoe and slowly seep through my toes and up to my heart, resulting in a slow and painful death.
Clearly, neither of these things came to pass, and we swept him farrrrr into the garden where he would be of no harm to anyone.
And that is the tale of how ChiPallyWally and I bravely massacred our first scorpion.
The End.
Or was it?
There was a hysterical ending to this story, when a friend of ours came to visit this weekend. The pile of binders (one of which contained the terrifying beast) are piled in our living room up against the window.
A, having heard the tale of the scorpion, casually asked “So where was this scorpion anyways?”, as she swung her legs up on the window sill, her bottom centimetres away from the pile of binders….
“Ummmm…..”
Bah hahahahahhahahaha
When we informed her, the look on her face, and the speed of her reflexes, were a sight to behold.
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