No wine-ing..... POW POW POW!

So this story is not all strictly mine to tell - but just because the hubs isn't a blogger, I don't feel it's fair to let his side of the story slip by.

His was another scorpion saga after all......

It happened over a week ago, while Mommy was on her way to book club. I'd innocently plonked a half-drunken bottle of plonk in a cup-holder beside the driver's seat in the minivan..

Yes - those cup holders are designed to fit a bucket of draft Dr Pepper - so there's no problem wedging a bottle of wine in one. There is a problem, however, driving in Texas with an open container of alcohol.....

But I didn't think about that until I was standing inside the local Super' - trying to 'redbox' a copy of One for the Money for 'book' club movie evening.

I also had no idea what redbox-ing was, and when I arrived, I was told by a teller that they didn't have a redbox. Oh... ! I was about to turn around, when the really helpful teller said. But we do have a bluebox!

Redbox, bluebox... what's the friggin' difference? I'd never before heard of a DVD vending machine - I wasn't about to care about what color it was.

It didn't matter,  they didn't even have our movie in there anyway.

It was about this time that the penny dropped about my illegal open wine bottle sitting pretty in the front of the minivan for all shoppers to see.. and I started to sweat a little. I rushed back out to the van with horrific visions of the Headlines in the local Hill Country paper:

"Pregnant British Immigrant arrested after being found driving with half-consumed bottle of wine!"

I wasn't drinking it - honest officer - it wasn't even for me! I was taking the bloody bottle to book club - a sure fire place to get rid of it - seeing as though I'm not allowed more than a tiny tipple!

I'd failed on my movie mission AND I was breaking the law.

There was, however, a movie store (i.e video shop in my Brit lingo) less than 30 seconds drive away. I could check there, but I was loathe to take any longer lingering in town - in case I upped my chances of being commandeered by the local sheriff....

I tried in vain to stuff the wine bottle behind my seat, but it was too fat to fit in the pocket - and contorting in my seat in the late afternoon heat was exhausting for this 7 month preggo punter. By then I was much sweatier - and starting to look a little inconspicuous to the closest parked vehicles. My clammy hands accidentally palmed the cork out. Oh, this looked bad... very bad.

So back in the cup holder it went, and I rammed the cork back into place.  

Leaving the offending bottle where it was, I drove across the road to the movie store without being arrested - phew - unfortunately finding only a Blue-ray copy. Did our host have a Blue-ray? Did this baby-brained Momma even have our host's phone number?

Can a monkey fly out of my butt..?


Meanwhile Daddy had set out with both boys in the double stroller for their evening doggie walk on the neighbors land. The doggies are still being leashed following the shooting incident.......


In the end I decided to ditch the DVD acquisition, and having failed my task miserably, I headed to our host's home empty-handed (save for the wine and a stick of summer sausage). Of course I passed a Sheriff on the way, but there was no reason for him to pull me over - at least no reason he knew of.....

If I'd have been stopped for anything at all, it would have been overly suspicious safe driving - and possibly smiling too much.

So I made it to book club unscathed. No real story there - sorry for the let down...

But then, one of my book buddy's phones started ringing...

The hubs was trying to get a hold of Mommy - but my phone was switched off of course - not entirely my own doing - I'm a terrible cellphone owner and user -admittedly - but even if I had been checking my messages, my latest phone has a life of its own - opting to shut itself down whenever it feels like it.

Apparently the hubs had just gotten off the phone with a lost member of our booky crew who'd been attempting to reach me for directions to our new book club hub.....

I was too late to help. She was already at the door having successfully navigated the new route to our host's house all on her own.

Before she'd even crossed the threshold, she looked at me concerned...

"Is your husband OK - he's not allergic is he?" I stared back somewhat baffled, then I looked over at book buddy#1 - the one who'd answered my hub's call only moments earlier - questioningly. She looked equally nonplussed.....

"He was screaming on the phone - I think he was getting stung by a scorpion....!" continued the no-longer-lost book club buddy, closing the front door behind her.

This was priceless! I was getting this story secondhand, from my book club buddy who'd ear-'witnessed' it firsthand over the phone!

Funny - he hadn't mentioned it to book club buddy#1 when he'd called only seconds ago . No wait - that's actually not too strange for my hubs...

It's not that unusual for him to have the most enthused and animated phone call with a family member, often with me hovering in the background hopping from foot to foot - dying to be filled in - and by the time he's wrapped up the conversation and hung up the phone, his expression is completely blank. He's already forgotten whatever tantalizing tit-bit of gossip he had to share less than a minute earlier.......

Getting back to the hubs screaming like a girl......

Daddy had been strolling the boys home when the incident occurred.
After stopping for a brief Kids' Discovery lesson at the giant ant hill, Daddy turned around to take the toddlers back home for their bubble bath - that's when he got the call from our lost book club buddy....

I can only imagine he was doing his very helpful hubby bit, when 'POW!' his calf erupted in flames (not literally - he didn't spontaneously combust or anything crazy) .....

He suspected at first that a monster fire ant had made its way up there.....

Seconds later - and still on the phone - 'POW!' his shin caught ablaze too... I just know Daddy was screaming like a little girl at this point... (in spite of being in the presence of both his boys).

And, to top it all off, the belligerent blighter popped Daddy a third and final - self damning - time 'POW!' on his thigh! Daddy was apparently jumping around like a madman - thankfully behind the stroller so the kids didn't get freaked out by the sight of Daddy's freaky-deaky dance!

Of course the sting-happy critter didn't again see the light of day, ending its horrid little existence dangerously close to the crotch, in the jeans' leg of my poor hubby...

But it was no ant! It was a big old brown scorpion that had scuttled its way up my hubby's jeans' leg during the walk. Eek!

The screaming was enough to spook the kids though, and in spite of the white hot pain searing up and down his leg  - Daddy pulled up his 'big boy pants' - and showed the dangerous mangled arachnid to our boys (Discovery lesson of the day #2).

The hubs relayed this second-hand scorpion scoop back to me over the phone, with the book club ladies congregated around the dinner table - all eyes on me. I confess I had a bit of a giggle at the hubby's expense - as soon as I knew he and the boys were all OK of course!

I was very relieved to hear the incident hadn't happened inside our house - yet somewhat disturbed to discover that these horrid little creatures are nimble enough to crawl up a trouser leg on the move!

By the way, we did manage to procure a copy of One for the Money after all. Our host happened to be snazzy enough to own a Blu-ray player, so we called one of our lagging ladies to make a quick stop at the movie shop to pick it up.

Keep a look-out for my upcoming review in Book-em! for Go Momma's verdict on paper v  reel......

Scorpion Saga III - a bathroom bludgeoning!

So much for my self proclaimed pioneering spirit! This monster had me literally dancing about on tippy-toes, screeching ''What do I do? What do I do?". I was hopping around, just like one of those mean old spinster elephants in Dumbo, when Monty the mouse stalks into their huddle to teach them a lesson!

Daddy and both boys were splashing happily in the tub when this HUGE scorpion made a dash for it across our bathroom floor. The full grown critter was dark dark brown, so fortunately it stood out against our light brown cork tiling. I was sitting pretty on the can, minding my own business (not doing it!), with a lizard towel hoody open on my lap, waiting for a squeaky clean kid to be deposited into it, when I spotted the ghastly giant, high-tailing it away from me by the side of the bath.


There were only a couple of places it could have come from - likely the towel cape I had just shaken out on my lap - or from the nasty bath rag Daddy had just intercepted from our eldest boy's grasp.. or the bathtub toy box.... agghh! All three possibilities put my babies directly in the line of fire! The creepy-crawlies really like the tub toys - last year a humongous wolf spider nestled itself into the bath corner tub toy organizer... I haven't used that toy pocket since my run in with that hideous furry arachnid!



From where the scorpion stationed itself - it's stinger awaiting a cleansed foot to descend from above -  no-one else but Momma could see the wretched creature, and with all the men of the house naked and as vulnerable as the plastic ducks bobbing around them, it was up to me to step up and save the day - Go Momma!

So I dithered around, my mind flip-flopping between the only two acceptable modes of extermination my husband has taught me - duck-tape, or scissors... ? When his voice broke my hesitation... ''There's a shoe..!'' Daddy suggested, nodding to my kicked off trainer. And so I seized my weapon and whacked the little bugger!

As I dropped the shoe, I allowed myself  a full body shudder, and a further icky dance commenced, where I flailed around the bathroom like a lunatic, trying fruitlessly to shake the heebie-jeebies out of my system. My kids were a little stunned by Mommy's weird contortions, and subsequently, the pulverized miniature alien glued to the floor by it's own body fluids.

It had splatted quite messily, and on a closer examination of the critter's corpse, I could see some whitish secretion. Oh god! It was looking like I'd murdered a fellow Momma, and her innocent eggs were now spewged across my bathroom floor. To which Daddy congratulated me further! My two year old crouched in close - seduced by Mommy's ghoulish reaction and the cautionary words "Be careful baby - it's dangerous!"

Although I did the deed. I was more than happy to let Daddy be the corpse cleanup crew,  busying my heroic self in the bedroom with the boys while Daddy mopped up the remains.

Size does matter to this Momma - regardless of Daddy's warnings that the babyies are the more malevolent -  and this latest brush with evil has definitely revamped my scorpion awareness. A once more mindful Momma is back to scanning floors, shaking towels and banging out shoes!

Three scorpions before Easter! Surely it's time to call the exterminator? Daddy thinks not. Apparently one invader every couple of months is just par to the course in Texas. I'm quick to point out to Daddy that we're already onto invader number 3 inside of three months - and now I've got the blog to prove it!

Scorpion Saga I - Intruder Alert..

Along with last weeks rain, came an unwelcome little fellow, who very nearly breached the cabin entrance. I'm proud to say that my hawk eyes were the first to hone in on the sneaky little cretin. He was tucked into the corner of the metal strip that runs the length of the doorway.

At first I thought he must be dead - a skeletal remnant from last years attackers - but we'd been in and out of this door all winter long, with baby crawling across the threshold. There's no way that miniature looking crawfish  would have gotten past our little happy snacker. We were already outside, the kids and I, all barefoot, on the Deck - so we'd either auspiciously stepped over him, or he'd been waiting on the sidelines for such a fortuitous moment as the door opening, and he'd made a dash for it once the coast was clear.

Thankfully, my husband made it home from work just in time to do the honours. He crunched the little monster underfoot without any qualms. And for the first time I didn't feel a bit bad for the poor little blighter. After-all, it was probably a family member, or at least a buddy of his that got me good at the end of last fall. The hubbie likes to refer to the scorpion incident as 'The time Mom popped her scorpion cherry''.

It was very late on in the year, and we'd not seen hide nor hair of the stinging beasts in weeks - I think there had been only one or two sightings in the house all year- so the last thing I was expecting was to share my bed with one. There were already four of us in the bed after all,  not really enough room for another bedfellow - especially such a hostile one.

In any case, I look back on the evening as a very fortuitous one, and a very lucky escape for my (just turned) 2 year old. I'd left him alone (or so I thought) on our bed to fall asleep. The lights were out and I could hear the machine gunfire recordings from his new Captain America toy. He didn't manage to fall asleep straight away, and so he called for me to come. I did of course, and we snuggled for a while. I think I had just about fallen asleep. I must have rolled onto my back and suddenly I felt an intense burning sensation jolt the right side of my back.

My first thought was 'SPIDER!' Surely only a Black Widow bite could hurt so bad... With my back on fire, I rolled protectively over my kid and scooped him up in my arms. I jumped to a stance holding toddler aloft and yelled for my husband to come. He was already at the door, pumped and ready to defend his family, after hearing my initial scream of pain.

I pointed to where the attack had taken place, and my would be hero blindly grabbed at the top cushion, crying out in pain as the stinging predator struck a second time, nailing my husband. The cushion went flying out of his hand, but no sign of the assailant. Our eyes scanned the area, desperate to seek the little terror that was wreaking so much havoc. Then Daddy spotted him, an adult scorpion lurking close to the side of the box springs, and pounded him without hesitation into the carpet.

I heaved such a huge sigh of relief. Grateful that the monster had been found and exterminated, even gladder that it wasn't some deadly spider that had pumped it's venom into both parents, but most of all, ever so grateful that it had been Momma who had rolled on top of the little beast and not one of my babies. In spite of the angry stinging sensation that remained in my back until the following day, I bore my pain with pride. I'd been wondering what it would feel like, and now I knew - definitely nastier than a bee sting - not as bad as an actual burn. Still, very much an evil to be avoided at all cost, if at all possible.        

So my ensuing bravery every evening following the scorpion incident was a big shocker to this bug phobic Momma. Without hesitation I was able to plunge my hand down between the mattresses, sweeping aggressively along the gap. The aim being to rouse out any unwelcome bedfellow that may cause harm to either of my babies. Thankfully I never stumbled across a scorpion this way. And then it became too cold to keep on worrying about them.

That deceased cretin that successfully nailed both Daddy and Mummy was probably the last awake scorpion of the year. By the time the scorpion incident occurred the alien type creatures were starting to get big and sluggish and ready to go into hibernation (according to my hubbie) - so you can imagine my surprise to already come up against an opportunistic intruder in January. I'd dropped my guard. I was no longer thrusting my hand into the unknown - Indiana Jones style. Neither was I banging out our shoes like I'd been taught to do when I first arrived here.

I'd thought  - much like bears in Alaska - that hibernation lasted until springtime. But then again, at a stretch, I could probably wear my bikini here in January, and acquire a comparable tan to what's achievable in Yorkshire in August. Scorpions apparently wake up again when it gets warmer (my husband informs me), and the fortuitous rain we received last week would have flushed them out of their hiding spots encouraging them to seek the warmth of our cabin - the rain suddenly no longer seems quite so fortuitous.   

After being here for just over 3 and a half years, one scorpion sting is a pretty good track record. I can count the number of sightings we've had inside our home on my fingers and toes -  that's a few more intruders than I'm comfortable with. Luckily Daddy is usually on hand with a pair or scissors or roll of duct tape ready to assassinate the little punks.

Dealing with scorpions is just one of those small drawbacks that go hand in hand with a glorious country life in Texas.