Rocks and Scorpions?

I had a class project once to collect insects and identify them.  The process was simple.  You netted a bug.  You identified it.  If you didn’t have it in your “collection”, then you put it in a babyfood jar that had some alcohol soaked cotton in the bottom and put the lid on.  The insect would humanely die (I hope),  and then you could mount it in a pencil box inside which you had put a small rectangle of Styrofoam.  “Mounting” consisted of stabbing the dead insect carefully through the point between the thorax and the abdomen without breaking it.  Exoskeletons can be quite brittle!  Usually, heads or antennae fell off, or legs broke.  After that, a small label with genus, species and common name was glued underneath.

It was then such a joy to look at them under a magnifying glass with my brothers, and pretend we were in a kind of sci-fi horror adventure inside the box with all those bugs.  Even more fun was having an insect “safari” with butterfly nets to collect new bugs for the collection.  I desperately wanted a walking stick, and a praying mantis.  Sadly,  we were overflowing with grasshoppers and butterflies.  There were a few beetles.

Dad woke us early one Saturday, as he often did, to take us up the canyon for a sunrise breakfast.  I loved these adventures.  They were a welcome break from the monotony of Saturday chores and babysitting my younger sisters.  It was a great opportunity to climb and hunt for fossils and rocks.  The air was chill.  Dad was still building our fire, and mother handed us an empty juice pitcher for our rocks.  We followed a hiking trail and crossed a rocky ridge into a field of sharp mountain shale.  I began to peel layers apart and lift larger rocks on a hunt for a good trilobite.  Dan and I spied a larger rock in the middle of the field and ran to it.  We pried it up, and there, underneath, we spied a small yellowish white scorpion.  It seemed to be nocturnal.  It was curled slightly in a ball as though resting or sleeping.  We knew better than to touch it.  What a find!  I found a long stick-like pointy piece of shale and gave it a poke.  The thing sprang to life, arching its tail threateningly and holding those delicate little pincers out.  Just as it did so, Dan gave me a shove and made a hissing sound.  It gave me quite a scare!  I scooped it up in the pitcher and slammed the lid down, and started sliding down the mountain toward my parents breakfast camp.

We showed our prize to Dad upon arrival.  He told us we could kill it in the baby food jar and mount it in the collection.  Technically not an insect, I hoped I could get extra credit for a rare arachnid found on a Utah mountain top.  Scorpions found in shale fields in the Wasatch mountains are not terribly common.  Mother shrilly told us to keep it away from the baby girls and never, ever touch it until it was good and dead.  We gave our solemn promise. 

And that is where things went awry.  We had used all the alcohol.  We put it in a baby food jar with a hole poked in the top and took it to school the next day.  Mr. Marzo took one look at it and said, “Wow, take it home, and don’t bring it back until it is dead.”  So I put it in my book bag and schlepped it home. 

Mother made us leave the jar on the picnic table on the patio.  “You are not bringing that thing in my house,” she said.  She had said it before.  About mice, a garter snake, a rabbit project we did for scouts, and other  dirty treasures we found that were incompatible with the inside of her house.  She was serious!  I  simply found an empty pickle jar and dumped it in.  No need for a lid, it wasn’t getting out.  I started looking for things a scorpion would eat, but it just remained in the bottom of the jar all balled up.  After a few days, I poked the scorpion with a pencil.  It didn't move at all.  “It is dead,” said Dan.  “We can take it back to school now.  So we tossed it around the yard for a while.  I know it seems odd, to play catch with a dead scorpion, but that is what we did.  Just some light catch with the little scorpion ball before dinner.  I can’t say exactly why.  I think we were just overtaken with boredom. As mother called us in for dinner, I tossed the little scorpion back into the bottom of the jar. 

The next morning before school, I cannot say what possessed me to grab a pencil and poke that little scorpion.  Maybe it was because it was sitting in sunshine.  I will never know exactly, but when the pencil poked it on the back, it sprang to life.  Tail curled, pincers out.  I could almost hear my brother hissing in my ear like he had on the mountainside all over again!  And just yesterday we had played catch with the thing!  “MOTHER!!!!!  How can I kill this thing once and for all?”  She donated a tablespoon of nail polish remover.  I drowned it, and proudly carried it to Mr. Marzo.  Who knows.  It may still be displayed in his collection.  If he is still living, that is.