Happy Things and Unsightly Screams

My head hurts. It's a tension headache. My last tension headache was on Friday. School induced? Children induced? Life induced? No. Scorpion induced. I have come to the actualization (this is me trying to be more "self-actualized") that I have a scorpion phobia. No shame. I've been sitting at my computer because I spotted a scorpion on the CEILING in my living room whilst Elliott has been out for the night.  Sitting on the couch is too... squishy. Much too easy of a target. I've been sitting in my hard kitchen chair for the last two hours with the harsh overhead lighting blasting in my eyes because any chance of relaxation for the night was just defeated (and now it's a matter of laziness, who are we kidding)? Too lazy to try and enjoy the night. Constant spasms jerking my blankets, pillows, food, away from me (you never know if that's a scorpion touching you)!  Now, I can muster up a textbook/baseball bat/heavy object splat kill (or at least immobilization) if it's on the ground. If it's on the ceiling? Big bombs come out of my mouth. Bigger bombs came out this time because I knew Elliott was gone. I still called him saying "I. Just. Can't." He called our neighbors (who we/he already knows pretty well and of course, I didn't have their number). They came over. Killed the scorpion. I offered cookies at a future date. Classy way to have them over for the first time. 

One of my first "new-home" purchases was a bug man. He just came a few days ago so the scorpion is... acceptable... Somewhat. Well, I'm not going to get mad at Troy, I'll just say. He's great. I mean, seriously, (ptooey, ptooey, ptooey), but if I didn't have Elliott, I'd probably have many sleepless nights... and a lot of bills from Animal Control over a single scorpion killing... do  they charge for that? Thanks goodness for neighbors! Meanwhile, thanks to my great memory, I can't get scorpions out of my head, and I am one of the few adults (I'm realizing) who still gets night terrors! I had to warn Brianne the first time we stayed in a hotel together. I often wake up screaming from one thing or another, many times: scorpions. Elliott taps me while in his sleep (he's mastered autopilot mode on this whole "comforting" thing. You have to if it happens enough times) and tells me to think of Pato, my affectionate little nickname for Barrett. So I do. And eventually, go back to sleep. Yeah, re-reading all of this has definitely convinced me of the need to seek out treatment options for phobias.