Sixth Sense...?

This morning, around 6:30, I awoke to the sound of my cat doing something on the floor at the foot of my bed. I have a lot of papers right there, and it sounded like he was chasing something through them. So I turned on the light, got out of bed, and grabbed a flashlight to look for intruders of the barbed-tail kind.

He was hitting the bed where the blanket is tucked under the mattress, and he was holding his paw in the air, like he had been stung. I CAREFULLY looked through the blanket and under the bed with my flashlight, not finding anything. I looked around the papers that were scattered, as well. A cap that had been sitting in the area had been knocked under the bed, so I carefully fished it out and looked it over.

After finding nothing, and because I was still very sleepy, I shook my blanket out (just in case) and [foolishly] laid back down, turning off my lights. I thought that maybe Ramses was just playing with one of his mouse toys, and that's what all the ruckus was. I couldn't shake, however, the feeling that there was something in my bed. I felt like there was something crawling on me. I sat up again, turned on my lamp, got out of bed, and checked myself out in the mirror in the bathroom. Still, nothing. I went and laid back down again, feeling very drowsy. This time, however, I left my lamp on.

I can't tell you how long I laid there afterwards. Maybe 3 minutes? I had the blanket wrapped around my arms and shoulders. Suddenly, my eyes shot open, and all I saw was something brown walking on my pillow towards my face, probably about 3 inches away. I shrieked, swung my blanketed arm at it, knocking it away, and leaped out of bed. Somehow I managed to grab my glasses in the process. I screamed probably 5 more times, for good measure, then went and stood in my bathroom, shaking and hyperventilating. About 30 seconds later, my roommate was at my door, asking if I was ok. I think I said no. She came in and just said, "Where is it?". I said I didn't know, I had knocked it off my pillow. She went and grabbed a shoe, and I shook myself out, making sure it wasn't in my hair. I heard her come back in my room and start smacking the floor, so I walked back out to find a pretty big scorpion crushed on my floor. At this point, I was pretty numb, just kind of passively observing. She scraped it up with a dust pan and took it outside while I cleaned the spot it had left on the floor.

Scorpions have long since passed spiders as being my #1 fear, ever since I found the first few in my house about a year ago. Last summer, while I was living alone, I found one on a shirt I was about to pack into a suitcase. I wish that was the extent of my experience with them.

Sunday, I picked up a pile of towels off my floor to go dump them into the washing machine. I was walking through the kitchen when I suddenly felt a pretty intense prick on my back. My roommate was standing there, so I asked her if there was something on me, because I felt like I had been bit. My hair was down, so she had to move it to the side, meaning she didn't see the large, hair-colored scorpion on my back between my shoulder blades at first. "Don't move. Seriously don't move." I knew then what it was. I apparently balled my hands into fists so hard that I broke the skin of my palms with my nails and didn't realize it. She knocked it off my back with a towel and told me to get out of there, so I ran, flailing (as I am wont to do), and lost my glasses in the process. As I stood there, blind, apparently the scorpion followed me across the floor (but thankfully not up my leg), because she killed it about a foot and a half from where I was standing. Oddly, aside from feeling like a very intense mosquito bite for about 15 seconds, I didn't have any other painful sensations from being stung. A red welt came up on my skin but went away shortly after. I did take a benadryl maybe 5 - 10 minutes after being stung, so maybe that's why I didn't have much of a reaction, but I feel like I got off easy- everyone I've talked to has described being stung by these guys as feeling like someone lit a match under your skin. Some people have numbness and tingling, and apparently temporary paralysis is not uncommon as they unleash a neurotoxin. I'm wondering if it accidentally brushed me, which someone said no way, or if it kind of missed. Apparently they have two kinds of venom- one for killing their prey and one for warning predators off- so maybe I just got the warning venom. Either way, I'm afraid that next time (which I hope there isn't one) I get stung, it will be unexpectedly horrible.

Both of these guys have been big, adult scorpions. After this morning, I feel like I'm being targeted. I thought with my animals sleeping in the bed with me they would avoid me, because, you know, dogs and cats seem like predators of scorpions. But apparently not. I have no idea how I'm going to sleep tonight. Probably very lightly.

Apologies for not having pictures, but I am not the kind to sit still while there is a deadly insect on me/walking toward my face. As it is, I'm sitting in my desk at work whacking myself at every little tingling sensation on my skin.