Remember "Remember Creepy Crawlers?"

I do. It was a blog post I wrote about the time Kim caught, and released, a member of one of the most venomous species of scorpion on the planet. This blog tells a different story.

This past Monday I came home from a long, but decent, day at work, walked through the house and let in my dog, Grace. My girlfriend, Kim, was still at work but I figured she would be coming home soon. I turned on the kitchen light to feed Grace and drink some orange juice. Then, I sat down and grabbed my laptop to check email, facebook, etc. before Grace finished eating and came over to sit in front of me. She stared up at the corner where the wall meets the ceiling over the more commonly used (it faces the TV) couch in the family room. I followed her eyes up to the same point and saw a familiar shape. The scorpion looked to be approximately the same size, shape, and color as the one Kim had shown so much mercy to a couple months before.

I'm pretty sure the first word out of my mouth was not one my mother would ever say. The next set of thoughts that crossed my mind were intriguing, even to me. I wondered how long I could just watch the creature on the ceiling. Could it wait until Kim got home? Could I just leave it be, sit down with my laptop and pretend Grace and I never saw the thing? "It isn't moving very fast. Maybe it will just die on its own." Of course, none of these thoughts prevailed in the end, and I started to plan my attack.

"A glass!" My previous "experience" with a scorpion and subsequent Google and Wikipedia searches were being put to the test. I remembered a very important aspect of scorpions, they can't climb glass. Pretty much anything else, as was exhibited by this ones comfort on the seemingly precarious acoustic ceiling, but not glass. So I grabbed a glass. Then I looked at the width of the glass I had grabbed. Not big enough. At that moment however, a fishbowl seemed small and inadequate for use as a barrier between myself and the fierce little arachnid. I settled on a slightly wider rimmed glass and hurried back to the spot.

"If I put the glass up against the ceiling, the scorpion won't just fall into the glass." This realization was not comforting in the slightest. I needed some paper. Something with a fair amount of rigidity, but not so thick as to make it impossible to slide between glass and ceiling without losing the scorpion. For some reason I couldn't find the right thing. Everything would either be ruined (not sure how) or was not slick enough and the scorpion would latch on and never let go. Finally, I settled on an unopened bill.

My biggest worry at this point was that I would completely miss the scorpion and it would somehow fall on me or down in between the couch cushions. Yes, I apparently have that little faith in my hand-eye coordination. Well, I didn't miss. The scorpion was dead center in the glass. If the ceiling was smooth the rest would have been easy, slide the bill under the glass and the scorpion and be done. The ceiling is not smooth. The choppiness of the acoustic ceiling created a situation that did not allow my plan to come to fruition. I put down the bill, and held the glass firmly, as though the scorpion had either the strength or wherewithal to pry it away from the ceiling and go on its merry way. I must have held the glass there tightly for a good two minutes while I tried to come up with a new way to capture the predator. During this time the "Hope it doesn't go too far while you wait for Kim to get home" plan sounded pretty good.

I didn't come up with a new plan. I just got lucky. I released the glass slightly on one side and the little beast made a break for it. I slammed the glass down and caught the creature right down the middle of its abdomen. The business end was still in the glass so I started to press and twist the glass, trying to split the scorpion in half. It didn't work. I didn't know if it was just the way the ceiling hit that protected the little devil from being cut in half or if the exoskeleton was just that strong.

I successfully shifted the edge of the glass up toward the head and started pressing and twisting, attempting to decapitate the beast. This clearly did not make the thing happy, its stinger now swinging swiftly at the inside of the glass over and over again. After a fair amount of time with me twisting the glass back and forth, I attempted to scrape the scorpion from the ceiling. Apparently, my cranial attack had rendered the thing a little less sticky. It fell swiftly to the bottom of the glass and, what's more, it was on its back.

I carried the creature to the kitchen counter and contemplated how to keep it from ever causing any trouble again. I decided the best way to tell Kim of my accomplishment was to show her, so the garbage disposal was out. I wasn't sure how well scorpions swim, so I didn't risk pouring water over it in an attempt to drown it. I didn't figure a scorpion could flip itself back over once on its back, but I wasn't sure, so I found another glass to set upside down inside the glass I used to assault the beast. It wasn't dead yet, but I had made this glass house its grave.

Overcoming fears is never fun (at least at first), always difficult (at least psychologically), and sometimes dangerous. But, if you can do it you gain a whole new confidence. Now, if only that newfound confidence would let me quit checking my shoes for scorpions.

Brian William Waddell is a foodie, beer geek, and author. His numerous blog posts range from food to politics. He also has a book of poetry, Fractured Prose, available here, and is ready to publish his second poetic endeavor.