When it comes to insects, by no means do I consider myself an expert.
In fact, if my kids tell me something about an insect, I’m likely to believe them.
Why?
For starters, kids love bugs. I don’t.
The only thing I like about bugs is killing them, especially spiders. I had an incident with a spider a few years ago at my in-laws’ that, to this day, I don’t like to talk about. (Perhaps it will be fodder for a future column.)
So when my daughter told me this weekend that she saw a scorpion, I was on high alert.
We were visiting my in-laws in tropical Fort Erie, Ont. While only a couple of hours away from midwestern Ontario, Fort Erie is different in several ways.
For example, while we’re shoveling snow at Christmas time, the grass is showing there.
In short, it’s warmer there.
We were sitting on the back porch watching the kids in the pool when my daughter, Ivy, got out of the pool to warm up.
She sat down in the chair next to me, and proceeded to regale me with tales of all the creatures that were in the pool with her brothers and cousin Bobby.
There were sharks, octopi, whales, fish… you name the underwater creatures, they were present.
As a good parent does for a six-year-old, you agree that these creatures were in the water. Her brothers and older cousin went along with it, too, which made for a lot of laughter in the pool.
After a few moments of talking, Ivy decided she was going to go back in the pool.
“AGHHHHHH!” she screamed.
Ivy is known to scream when excited, and we figured she was screaming at the boys in the pool.
She came running back to me, in a panic.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I saw something really scary,” she said.
“What?” I asked, thinking this was part of the game.
“A… a… scorpion!” she replied.
“Say what?”
“There’s a scorpion over there, Dad!” she told me, matter of factly.
I played along.
“Oh? Really? I’ve never seen a scorpion before,” I said. “Where is it?”
She nervously pointed over toward another chair, sitting on a cement pad.
“Let’s go take a look at this thing,” I said. “Scorpions are very, very rare in Ontario.”
I walked toward where she pointed, with Ivy staying well back.
“Be careful!” she said.
As I got to the chair, I didn’t see the scorpion she spoke of. In fact, I didn’t see much. However, I continued to play along.
“Wow! That’s one big scorpion!” I said.
My wife walked over and looked down.
“There’s nothing there,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “Just playing along.”
Ivy, wondering why we were so brave, came over.
“You’re looking in the wrong spot,” she said. “It’s over here.”
Ivy then moved a chair, and out from under the chair crawled a couple of… ear wigs.
“AGHHHHH!” she screamed again. “THE SCORPIONS!”
After a bit of a laugh, I looked at Ivy.
“Those are the elusive and extremely rare Canadian scorpion,” I said. “They may be creepy, but they won’t hurt you.”
By this point, older brother Cameron had made his way over to see what was going on.
Cameron, like most 12-year-olds, knows how to ruin the fun on a regular basis.
“What are you screaming about?” he asked. “Those are ear wigs!”
Ivy looked at him, confused.
“What’s an ear wig?” she asked.
“It’s just a bug,” Cameron replied. “You were scared of that little bug?”
Ivy took the bait, and started chasing Cameron around the back yard before both ended up back in the pool.
“Scorpion… yeah, I can see the resemblance,” I said to my wife.
“You believed her that there was a scorpion, didn’t you?” she said.
“Nah,” I said, obviously lying.
“Alright then,” she said, walking away.
“Oh, look Mike… there’s a spider!”
I didn’t spend much time outside after that…
***
Mike Wilson is the editor of Midwestern Newspapers. He doesn’t like spiders, or any other insect for that matter. Comments and feedback are welcome at mwilson@midwesternnewspapers.com.
