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Comment by ALittleLight | Hacker News Reader

I used to live in a scorpion-rich environment and can attest that a sting should disqualify one from manual labor for a day. I found that every time I was stung though the effects were less and less. The last time I was stung was a minor nuisance at most.

I would advise, if you find yourself living with scorpions, to check your shoes, by shaking them out, before putting them on.

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My family lived in Texas for a time when my sister was younger and she stepped out of the shower one day and was stung on the head by a scorpion that was in her towel. Hearing that story I was certainly very vigilant, even paranoid perhaps, about checking my shoes and such when we went to visit family there when I was a kid.

A buddy grew up in Mexico. When he was 10 or so, he pissed on a wall and got stung in just about the worst place imaginable. I don't live around scorpions and now I keep an even larger distance between me and peeing-surfaces lol

how often are you peeing on walls on why?

The exact way of getting stung by a scorpion while peeing would be most interesting -- I honestly cannot imagine the exact mechanics. A bee, a wasp, OK, I can imagine. A scorpion cannot fly, so how did it get so close?

I guess the scorpion must have been on the wall.

Who pees that close to a wall though? Yikes

My guess: someone who is attempting to pee on the scorpion. We are talking about a 10 year old, after all.

It would appear that the scorpion was in fact pissed off, not pissed on.

Take your upvote.

Absent (PEED ON SCORPION)

When I was 4, my parents built the house where I grew up. Back then, it was out in the country. For the first year at least, some of the wildlife wasn't ready to admit the space they occupied was no longer theirs. Scorpions were one of the longest hold outs, as they were constantly making their way inside. According to my parents, I was four so don't really remember, but I was very good at chasing them without getting too close to get stung. I'm assuming the parental units told me they would sting and I'd get hurt/ouchy/etc. Guess I actually listened.

The checking shoes by banging them is just muscle memory now.

Now, I like to use blacklights to find them at night.

</pointlessAnecdote>

Wrap the opening to your shoes in socks. That let's them get air and keeps critters out.

Source: kept camel spiders, scorpions, and mice out of my boots.

Look on the bright side; now you can go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

When we had scorpions, we got barncats. They took care of scorpions, snakes, and a few other critters that are pests when mixed with humans.

My nieces grew up in Oklahoma. Mom would come home and sometimes there was a drinking glass somewhere in the house with a scorpion trapped under it. The kids (5 or 6yo!) would casually capture them in this way so Mom could deal later.

I second the shoe-shaking ritual. Even if you keep your shoes inside. When I lived in the desert, the neighbor had work done in his yard, and every scorpion from his property moved into mine.

One day I found the cat eating a scorpion in the living room. Rushed him to the emergency cat vet place, and was told that cats aren't bothered by scorpions or their stings. But don't make crunchy, meaty scorpions part of a regular diet.

It makes sense, there are like 100 species of scorpions in the regions where house cats were first domesticated. Cats do hunt scorpions which probably scored them some extra holiness points with the ancient Egyptians.

Dogs also hunt scorpions. Dogs are not immune to scorpion stings, they're just ignorant.

Dogs seem to hunt pretty much anything. I wonder if we've bred out the understanding of what is and isn't edible in dogs, but not cats? Or perhaps its a social thing that wild canids teach their young?

Half the dog owners I know have some story of their dog catching a hedgehog or something equally inedible, but the worst that seems to happen with cats is their prey fights back a bit harder than they expected and they get a rat scratch.

My experience with Labrador Retrievers is that they will eat anything, on the assumption that if it doesn't agree with them, they can always puke it up at 3AM.

Dogs were bred / created to keep their owners safe, not themselves. That seems to track. I've lived several places I'd not live without a dog alarm or three, so I can't say I'm not grateful.

I live a block off the salt marsh here on the coast and mine'll hunt after Fiddler Crabs[0] until they get pinched on the snout.

The mutt learned and the Lab just keeps on going after them... strange creatures, dogs are.

[0] - https://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/acechar/speciesgallery/In...

I believe the technical description of a Labrador Retriever is "dumb as a box of rocks."

Still not convinced cats were domesticated. They just sort of...moved in. I never thought about how they did originate there though. Scorpions are basically cat fodder.

I found a small scorpion in my shoe (it moved and caught my eye) that was just inside my air conditioned apartment in Austin, Texas.

the vets here in Arizona say that of course cats are vulnerable to stings, but people claim that cats are "immune" because they heard it from someone else, not a vet.

Anyway, the veterinarian told us that cats are generally so fast to notice and slap the shit out of scorpions that they kill scorpions...without being stung.

One of our feline family members got stung and let out a big OWWWWWW then was licking her paw for quite some time, and this was a bark scorpion. Other times she's slapped them to squish them.

Insert cat-reading-newspaper-thinking-I-need-to-get-myself-a-cat.png meme.

I lived in the Mojave and the scorpions there aren't really that much of a threat. Scorpion stings are akin to common bee stings and don't really impact your ability to labor or threaten you in any serious way, except if you have allergies.

I learned the same lesson after dealing with a black widow infestation. It's a an easy habit that saves a lot of personal suffering.

There was a recent YouTube video on how this process was used in horses to anti venom.

Check the clothes you are about to put on as well.

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