The How-Do-You-Dos Continue to Get Finer

Hey! Some of you may not be aware that this is my last year! That I will be retiring at the end of this school year. I know. I really shouldn't have kept that information a secret. I understand how you all would like the opportunity to travel this road with me. To meander down the blue highways of the final leg of my career, stopping for sustenance (and quite possibly to simultaneously chew the fat) at roadside diners where refills are free, chicken livers are crisp, and the green beans are cooked with bacon until they are limp and tasty.

One would think that Val has her routine down after all these years. That her eons of experience have broken a trail, cleared away the foliage, put down a layer of 3-inch minus, topped it with some 3/4-inch minus, flattened it out with a roller, and provided Val with smooth sailing from her parking lot space at the end of the building to her desk at the far corner of her classroom. But one would have thunken wrongly.

Friday morning, as I rounded my hand-me-down desk that's about 3/4 the size of a regular desk, to plop down on my rolly chair that was a reject long ago from the business lab...I was confronted by THIS:

Yeah. That's a scorpion. Sure, he's not very big. But would you want to walk up on this thing inside your home away from home? Perhaps stroll right past it in your sock feet because you have a sore toe that resulted from your sore knee that was caused by a flu shot one week ago? I think not!

After gasping in shock, I grabbed my cell phone to take a really bad picture. That can't all be blamed on me. My phone is a relic that was once used by Genius, then discarded, placed on his desk with two or three other discards, then drafted back into service when my last cell phone died. It does not even have a lens over the camera hole. So give me a break, why dontcha?

Here's a close-up. Or at least a closer-up. It doesn't pay to go getting all up close and personal with a stinging venom-secreter.

As you can see, Scorpio's business end is still intact. What does one do when faced with a deadly (or at least red-and-itchy sting-inflicting beast? Some might run for help. Don't forget that I am lame. I think you remember why. Some might call a higher-up to deal with the issue. I couldn't get to the phone. Scorpio was blocking my path. Don't even dream (like I used to) that my cell phone would work inside the building. I have a rusty, near-empty can of insecticide in my cabinet, from last year when the ants invaded the storeroom next door. But that would have required limping across the room (did I mention that I had a sore toe due to my sore knee due to a flu shot a week ago Friday) and Val just wasn't up to that much exertion, after dragging herself across the vast length of experience-paved road.

So I threw a Puffs With Lotion over his back, and stepped on him.

I must say, the crunch under my old New Balance was quite satisfying. Then I put another Puffs With Lotion on top of that one, and scooped up the carcass and deposited it in my desk-side wastebasket. Which I bought at Walmart for myself, the school only providing one wastebasket per classroom, that one being bigger, and up front, for the use of the general population.

In retrospect, that might not have been the best method of disposal. Not that I would wish an escaped undead scorpion to crawl from the depths of the wastebasket and terrorize 80 freshmen. But neither did I wish it to terrorize me. I admit to looking over my shoulder several times per hour to make sure Scorpio stayed entombed. I should have just dangled him out the front window, and shaken him loose from his double shroud. Even at the risk of a dropper-offer calling to complain that a certain Mrs. Val Thevictorian was throwing trash out her window.

Just another day (49 down, 130 to go) in the work life of Val. Another golden thread woven through the rich tapestry of her life.