What, did the remote control fall down?

This week, I had planned on writing about how living in a foreign culture and a foreign language serves to both educate and humble. I wanted to share how I've had to learn how not to participate in conversations, how to rely on my gut instinct regarding individuals and situations, and how things that would be ordinary and mundane at home are either exhilarating or terrifying here.

That post has to wait, however, because I cannot write anything like that before getting this out into the open:

I saw my first live scorpion last night, and I was freaked the (explicit) out. I have chills just typing about this, in fact.

The situation played as such: I was reading some Che in the family room, while host mom, brother and sister were watching cartoons (something Japanese, dubbed into Arabic, on a channel with an English name). Some movement caught my eye by the television, and wouldn't you know... a big, black scorpion was scampering around on the floor, looking a bit lost and frantic. As I've been in this situation many times since coming to this country, I should've been a bit more understanding of this poor guy. He was probably just looking for a familiar face, or some dinner, or somewhere to rest his stinger for a while.

Instead, I freaked out -- well, as effectively as one can when one only has the linguistic capacity of a three-year-old.

I get flustered when I get, uh, flustered (read: when I'm paralyzed with fear), and I forgot how to speak momentarily. I Francafied the word scorpion because I couldn't recall it in Tashlheit, but hostmom didn't get it.

What, did the remote control fall? she asked me.

OOHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, shoof! SHOOF! I returned. No, look! LOOK!

She saw it finally, announced it as a scorpion, and amidst the shouting of my siblings, killed the sucker with her shoe. Safi, baraka, the emergency was over.

Oho, my friends, oho. <-- that's the Tashlheit word for no.

Host mom felt that I needed to be educated, so she swept the carcass (which had to be between 4 and 5 inches long) up onto an empty bag of something sugary, and lovingingly shoved it in my face to show me where the stinger was. Even after I nodded vigorously that I understood and the poor sucker was thrown out the second-story window, I was not relieved or comforted.

I love horror movies and haunted houses and the like, and am really only bothered by my irrational fear of falling to my death. However, after all of this sharing, I must confess: this sucker kept me up all night. I tossed and turned thinking about this little guy, worrying if one of his brothers could get under my mosquito net, and tried to decide if I should risk getting out of bed to tuck my mosquito net under my mattress or not.

Folks, I haven't been that scared since I went on the Raptor at Cedar Point in the eleventh grade.

Conclusion:
I know that the bigger the scorpion is, the less harmful he is. I also know that I live in Morocco, and that this is something I will have to deal with this for the next two years. And I promise that I will return to walking around barefoot with confidence... in a few days.

P.S. Pictures are on my USB key and ready to upload... but they have to take a backseat to a potential housing crisis regarding my apartment for after my homestay is up. I will let you know when they're posted.