Scorpion Hunt...

When my brother and his family were visiting we were brainstorming some activities that were unique to Arizona. When we suggested scorpion hunting my brother nearly jumped out of his seat in excitement. Neither Steve or I had done it, but we knew plenty of people who had and we were all for eliminating scorpions in our yard.

We borrowed two black lights and once it got dark we walked the perimeter of our yard. You can imagine my disgust when this thing started glowing: They seriously glow extremely bright when you shine a blacklight on them. This was the first one we came across and between the amazement and sheer disgust we decided we needed to kill it. The first weapon of choice = A kids foam bat. Although the bat did the trick, we realized it wasn't ideal. So we came across another scorpion and this time we used a hammer. Once again- it didn't work out like we had imagined. So we resorted to a 5 foot 1x2 piece of MDF. It allowed us to smoosh them without getting too close. We walked around the yard and killed 7 scorpions with this method. I was slightly grossed out by the number of scorpions that lie wait in our yard and I was relieved to witness the death of each and every one of them.

We were all on an extreme high. Who would've thought killing a couple of scorpions could be so fun, but it was exciting.

The next night we ventured out again to see what we could find. We thought we had killed them all the night before, but we figured it was worth a shot. This time, we had purchased our own black light (after the first night hunting I knew we had to have our own). The black light we purchased was marketed specifically for scorpions and it had 23 bulbs in it. It was a little pricey for a tiny flashlight - over $20 - but after borrowing two different kinds from our friends we knew these were superior to the other. While purchasing the flashlight, the kind salesman at Ace hardware mentioned that he heard you could spray brake cleaner on them and they would die. His idea sounded like a fun improvement from our previous three methods so I picked up a bottle.

Let it be known: the brake cleaner worked just like the salesman said it would. We went out and surprisingly found 6 more scorpions the second night. We sprayed the first one and watched it freak out for a good 15 seconds and then it gave up fighting and stopped moving. This was, hands down, our favorite method of eliminating these scary looking creatures. And with each spray came an increased amount of satisfaction.

If anyone is visiting AZ and wants a unique experience - I've got just the thing for you. I don't want to brag - but I will - I'm a pretty impressive exterminator!