The Scorpion Nugget

[GR Guy]

 

[Andyy]

Scary video.

My story happened, last year during a night hunt to an area I had been to before.  There was good gold here and I wanted to see what I had missed.  Now... I wear a bandana around my neck a lot of times.  Sometimes this is for sun guard and other times it is to maybe give me an extra bit of time in case a mountain lion decides to get its jaws around my neck (not that it would help much)  But maybe it would give me an extra couple seconds to reach my gun.   

Anyways, I had hiked back into this spot and it's maybe around 2am.  Nobody around.  Well, I had just sat down and decided to eat an apple and get some carbs back into my system so I could get more energy before all of the digging I had to do.  And the nights are soooo beautiful in Arizona.  I like just sitting and listening.  Call it my midnight meditation if you will.

Well, after my snack and bit of meditation, I started walking down this familiar wash, in search of yellow, when I felt a tickle on my neck.  I thought my bandana was rubbing against me.  hmmmmm, no wind, tonight.  I stopped  frozen, and felt the crawling farther along my neck on my hairline.  This was no bandana.  I quickly tipped my head forward, and savagely brushed both hands to the back of my neck and forward to get whatever it was, off as expeditiously as possible.  Well, lo and behold, a scorpion with a body of maybe 3/4 inch, lands in front of me.  With no stings on my hands or neck, I felt we both stood there staring at each other for about 10 seconds or so, wondering WTF just happened.   But after snapping out of my shock, I let the bugger go with a thank you.  Now I have been stung before on the feet and hands, but I am really not sure what would happen if stung on the neck.  Probably nothing different.  Thankfully, that night, I didn't have to find out.

My thought is that it crawled up my backpack when I sat down to have a break.  So now, day or night, I shake my pack before putting it back on.  I have many more stories like this with spiders, but the scorpion crawling around my neck is still the clearest one on my mind, and one I recall every night hunt I am on.

Just a short story to remind everyone to shake out their backpacks and brush off a little after those short breaks.