Uninvited Guests

Crape Myrtle petals on the walk.

It’s an odd ritual, but before the lady comes to help clean my house, I clean my house. I learned this from my wife, who, whenever we were fortunate enough to afford the help did the same thing. So, there I was picking up and straightening up when I found them, the desiccated corpses of two scorpions. One was in the corner where the ficus winters, and the other was by the fireplace.

Being corpses, they didn’t present much of a problem except I realized at some point they were probably still alive and most likely crawling around in my house. Fortunately, scorpions are solitary creatures who like shadows and dark places and our paths never crossed. But I’ve been stung in the house before, so it gave me pause as to how they came to share my abode. I thought I’d closed up those entrances.

I suppose now I will have to try and figure this out, although, I probably won’t spend all that much time on the project. I concluded long ago that nature will find a way. Still, I’ll give it a shot because I at least ought to make it difficult for them, which I why I try to remember to bring in the cat food each night, because I’m not laying out a racoon buffet. And I’m sure not running a scorpion hostel. Although, how would I know unless I examine all the dark spaces and it hardly seems worth the effort. So, I guess I’ll just do my best and sweep them up when there’s no way out.