Yosemite TRAGEDY

In my wrap-up of our Easter weekend trip to Yosemite (see parts 1 and 2), I alluded to a CRIMINAL event committed by a DEVIOUS WILD FORCE OF EVIL upon my person in our hotel room.

It’s Saturday afternoon, we’ve returned from a day of hiking various strenuous and easy trails, well soaked by a thunderstorm. I mean soaked, all of my waterproofing efforts were for naught. All I want is to be in dry clothes.

I head to the dresser, where we’d put away our clothes (it was a short trip, but, hey, let’s get settled in), peel my Moisty McMoisterson pants off, pull my jeans out of this drawer, slip a foot in when–

YOWZA! EEGAD! ZUT! (pardon my French). I rip my foot back out because of the sharp, shooting pain suddenly imparted upon it (I assure you no curse words were uttered even in my time of distress).

My first thought is a wasp or bee has stung me right on my damn foot, but I see the thing fall to the floor and crawl under my pants. It was dark. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it didn’t move like any wasp I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen my fair share. I think I’ve been stung two or three times, but my clearest memory was in grade school, during gym class (reason number 312 why I hated gym class), and my teacher’s honest-to-Catholic-God remedy was to apply meat tenderizer to it. I know you’re probably thinking of the scary mallet,  but I actually mean the Lawry’s or McCormick’s version.

I have no idea if this helped or is even a real home remedy (ok, apparently it is), but it certainly left an impression as even a 10-year-old thought that applying spices to a child’s fresh bee sting was a little odd.

Anyway, back to the scene of the crime, where I’ve hobbled over to the couch. Richard emerges from the bathroom to see me, pantsless, on the couch, clutching my foot and hyperventilating a little from pain and shock. I explain very calmly to him that I’ve been stung by some creature which has crawled under the pants that are now on the floor, and could he please be a dear and pick them up to see what it was?

Me: I–something–stung–pants *gasp gasp* look!

Richard: What? Wait, what’s happening now?

Me: Something stung me *gasp gasp* went under pants *pants pants* see what it *heave heave* EFFING IS!

Richard gets the memo, grabs a shoe, lifts the pants off the floor and flattens whatever it was.

Richard: Yeah, that was definitely a tiny scorpion.

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A SCORPION??

REALLY?

Really? Here? Of all the times I’ve been warned to look out for scorpions, in the middle of the forest on a mountain was not one of them.

This is not that scorpion. He died before his closeup. This is one we met in Costa Rica, who lived peacefully on our bathroom wall and whom I considered a friend.

I sighed anyway, because in the back of my mind I had wondered if that’s what it was and how big it might be and do I need to go to the hospital and OH GOD MY PRETTY, PRETTY FOOT I CAN’T LOSE IT IT’S MY FAVORITE ONE!

But. It was a tiny scorpion. The sting didn’t hurt very long, and after running it under some cold water, applying some sting/itch first aid goo, and shedding some tears of pain and shock and relief, it was fine. You can hardly see it after three and a half weeks. Okay, actually, you can totally see it and I showed it to my parents via Skype, but I’m not putting up a pic here because feet don’t photograph well.

Some of the pain was honestly emotional, I mean, I am a Scorpio. I thought we were brothers! How could you do me so cold, hermano?

We shook the shit out of all of our clothes, repacked them in our safe, zippered bag, and had a drink at the hotel bar to recover. It did the trick.

Richard even humored me by stopping at the hotel gift shop for some souvenirs, but to my dismay it was a pretty crap gift shop (and I am a connoissieur)–they had some fake turquoise and gold-mining junk, but not even any candy beans shaped and colored like rocks. Those were my favorite as a kid, I loved bringing them back to share with my friends, taking a big honking bite out of one before letting them know they were edible.

We moved on to a relaxing dinner at The Ahwahnee, and on our way out we noticed they had a pretty nice gift shop of their own.

Pretty successful trip after all.