I am not an animal person–to put it mildly. I was bitten by a dog when I was five while riding my bike outside my grandma’s house and have always had a fear of dogs. I was stung by a bee…a dead one (that’s another story) when I was 7 and hate most things with wings (if they don’t bite, they use my car as a toilet). My wife had a very nice cat in Germany — perhaps I could tolerate a little feline friend — but I do not want any animals for they are more trouble than they are worth, especially for those with a traveling lifestyle.
And then some people choose snakes or spiders or scorpions as pets. That will always be one of the great mysteries of life for me, for I just cannot fathom why anyone would ever want one of those nasty creatures that I would destroy with a shovel before allowing closer than a foot from me. And there are wild ones too…and sometimes they board airplanes. Which brings us to today’s story.
An Alaska Airlines plane arrived at LAX with some extra luggage from Los Cabos…a scorpion sauntering around the passenger cabin. As the plane readied to take off for its next leg to Portland, the scorpion decided to drop down from an overhead bin onto a passenger.
Freaking out, the man flicked the scorpion off his shoulder. It landed on a woman’s hand in front of him…and she was promptly bitten. The lady was removed from the plane where paramedics struggled for a good hour to get the needle out of her.
Ugh…I am shivering just writing that. Now you know what scares me.
Looks like the scoripion had a tatoo or owner’s marking on it…
Oh, you so disappointed me. I was fully expecting a story about how this was an “emotional support scorpion” that got loose from its carrier.