I have a black light. You probably don't.

My friend Danny ran into the meeting room at camp screaming that he had just been stung by a scorpion. The panic on his face proved he thought he had been stung by the Indiana Jones kind of scorpion, the kind that causes blood to trickle from your ears just slowly enough to make you realize something’s wrong, then you die. Texas scorpions hurt like fire, but they don’t kill. Danny didn’t know this. Anyway, he ran into the room shouting that he had just been stung, fear darting from his words. The spontaneous group overreaction could not have been choreographed more beautifully.

Paul screamed, “Hurry, take off your shirt!!”

Tim bolted out of the room, “I’ll get the ice!”

The other guys shoved him onto the couch, elevated his feet, took off his shoes, and tied a tourniquet to his arm, all faster than the secret service would have responded to gunfire.

Tim ran back in with ice, “Hurry, rub this all over your chest!!”

Paul hit a button on his watch like he was timing whether their efforts would be enough to slow the poison, and in turn, avoid Danny’s untimely death. Danny spent the next 47 seconds vigorously rubbing large ice chunks all over his chest. He eventually clued in, but not before he freezer burned his entire torso.

I’ve always thought scorpions were kinda funny because of that memory.
Yeah, killer sharks are kinda funny too, until one ATTACKS YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.

So there I was, minding my own business, dead asleep at 2:37am, when I felt an intense searing pain on my rib. I jumped up and clasped my hand over the rib where the freakish pain originated. Something instantly moved UNDER MY SHIRT. As my shirt was flying across the room, I saw the scorpion bail out and sail to the floor. He defiantly scampered toward the dresser waving his stinger tail in the air shouting, “Boooyah! You thought you were sleeping! Bwahhaha…”

At that point, I was not only awake, but I was convinced there were at least 20 more scorpions hiding in my hair. I started awkwardly thrashing my hair around, hoping to dislodge the scorpions before their next attack. The scene reminded me of Julie Efferson’s sixth grade slumber party where we decided to make our own Def Leopard video.

By 2:43am, I was researching how to annihilate scorpions from the earth. Apparently scorpions glow in black light, much like those plastic stars that stick on the ceiling in your bedroom. So I did what every normal 35 year old does, I bought a black light. The bulb fits into a typical lamp, so every night for a few weeks I turned off all the lights in the house and went scorpion hunting. I know, real mature. I have no idea what the neighbors thought as I walked around our pitch black house with my homemade light saber.

We haven’t had any scorpion sightings in a while, so I’ve chilled out and stopped hunting at night. I still have a cool black light though, which I’m pretty sure secretly makes everyone a little jealous.