A few things have happened here at my Floridian Minute House, Reader.
First, I killed a scorpion in my room a couple of nights ago. Now, I wasn’t even sure it was worthy of a story about it, but then my friend Choo indicated otherwise, and I rethought it.
So let’s go over that sentence again. With a tich more consideration.
I – me, Trixie Bang Bang, she who is afraid of almost every insect that surprises her and most certainly will scream the good scream over something potentially bitey and poisonous
Killed – yes, sorry Pro-Bug-Lifers, and while I have recently attended the Buddha temple here in Florida where all creatures are valued, blah blah, I value stingy bugs that AREN’T captured in my living room – which happens to also be my bedroom – because Trump said something just like that and we all want to model ourselves after him, amiright (of course not), but anyway, yes, KILLED.
So. Much. Thought. was put into the shoe selection that would Do The Deed, Reader. So. Much.
Let’s set the scene a little more vividly, so you can put yourself right here with me and the scorpion.
I came in that evening after being somewhere – maybe my friend Pat’s for dinner – so I got home a little late, around 9-ish. Already a long day.
I went to the bathroom (12 steps), brushed my teeth, took off my clothes, came through to the kitchen (6 steps) and fed Kitty Purry, and filled up her water dish, and then went to the living room to scoop her box (3 steps), did the scooping, went back to the kitchen to wash my hands (3 steps), came back towards the living room (6 steps) and stopped dead. in. my. tracks.
Wait – what?? – rubs eyes — what IS that in the middle of the floor?? Lint? Cat hair??
No. Nope. No.
You know what it is, Me.
That is not the actual one in my room, but it is its twinsie.
Fling open my door (yes, still naked) and yell/hiss outside “CHRISTIE!!” – because this surely seems like a job for the landlord.
Christie’s not outside.
Decide to throw my little run-around dress on over my head and regroup (12 steps back to the bathroom). Afraid this scorpion will have moved but clothes won the debate because I’ll be braver with clothes on, I think, and if this thing gets away from me, I will DEF be heading outside and no one needs to see all this, Naked and Afraid. I literally watch that show endlessly, and now I am starring in it myself, because life truly does imitate art and I need to watch shows instead where people find bags of money in the middle of their rooms.
This is where the shoe debate starts happening in my head. I can step on it with my flip-flopped foot, but that seems too risky. What if I miss, I may get thrown off balance, and it could run UP MY LEG instead and there’s just too much of my body in too-close proximity to the scorpion.
Girl needs a HEAVY shoe for this job.
Without a lot of TREADS, a.k.a. escape routes.
I picked up several shoes and debated the weight. One of my heavier sandals had more thread than I was happy about, but I liked the firmness of the footbed – it wouldn’t be floppsy and go all wayward on me.
I needed a back up plan, too.
Luckily, I have recently purchased a $15 Bissell stick vacuum thing-a-mah-jig, and I got it all in position and plugged in for easy suction power once the deed was done.
Then.
I grabbed that shoe and killed that fucker.
Like a boss hero in my own horror story.
Sorry Not Sorry, Dangerous Thing. Don’t come uninvited into my room, is the moral of this story. You can go and live your life however you see fit, stinging shit and pinching things with those claws. But do it in your own space. Not mine.
This is where the shoe sat for a while, calming down after its hard work.
Now, I wish this was where the story ended. With me being proud of outweighing a poor bug by 100 lbs shut it, Reader, and going about my life.
Except.
I still haven’t emptied the tank on that tiny little vacuum. Don’t worry, it’s sealed tight and had he survived, he couldn’t escape the plastic chamber.
I check under my comforter, sheet and between all over even the unused parts of my bed every. single. night.
I squish my pillows before lying my head on them. Check INSIDE all my clothes and shoes. Shake out all my towels. Look in the shower not once, but twice. Keep the toilet lid down.
Basically I’m still afraid.
But I’m getting braver. At least I think so.
I picked up my notebook at work and a “palmetto bug,” which is a fancy fucking cockroach with a southern drawl, ran out of the pages and I flung my book across the room while letting out a girly shriek like the sophisticated professional that I am.
So there’s that.
Florida is a scary m-effer. So much so, that I haven’t even mentioned the time I found a WORM the size of a standard U.S. male’s penis in the POOL. It looked kinda like this, only bigger, and darker brown.
It was already drowned.
I debated what to do about that, and then just calmly got out of the pool, went and got my $1 Grabber Tool and was able to grab it up and fling it out of my oasis. 
Except I pinched my grabber tool too hard and cut it in half, and then I had the luxury of disposing of two pieces of hairy leggy worm with guts oozing out, so yeah, life is good in Florida, Ya’ll. Come on down.
*the US standard penis size is not something I determined, Reader, despite my years of extensive and exhausting research in this field of study. It’s a fact from Google and the Internet is never wrong.