Scorpions - don't ya just hate them!

I guess I was about 14 , laying in my bed, i felt something crawling up my right side. I clamped down on it with my arm and it stung me.
I jumped up out of bed and found that little yellow bastard. It died quickly.
I ran to my parents who told me it was nothing but a sting and to go back to bed.
Sure enough, went back to bed and the next morning there wasn't even a decent bump to indicate I'd been stung. I though scorpion stings were fatal. I just knew I was gonna die a horrible death and my parents would grieve uncontrollably, eat up with the knowledge they could have saved me.
Weeks later when I stepped on one and it stung my foot I didn't even bother to tell anyone.
We have these little bark scorpions and they're typically found around pine forests. They seem to bother some people with their sting. Others, like me, it don't bother.
Scorpions have got to be the ugliest critters ever put upon this earth. In my mind they serve no purpose and are killed immediately.
For a while I was finding them in my sink in my shop. I'd find one about every other day. Once I found one approaching the web of a large spider. The spider pounced and the fight was on. She grabbed scorpion and started biting it. The scorpion started to sting the spider. Eventually the scorpion killed the spider, but it was an epic battle!
I know in the southwest there are scorpions that put a serious hurt on you. I read one account where a cowboy was trying to wake his partner. The partner was groaning and holding his neck. The cowboy pulled back to covers and found a huge scorpion he said was 9 inches long. That's a whole lot of creepy!
Do you have scorpions in your area? Ever been stung? Let's hear your scorpion story!

I live in the woods literally. Tucked in between the Okefenokee and the Osceola National Forrest.  when we moved out here we had an array of crawling things from brown recluse spiders to  wood roaches...and scorpions.  After many years it seems that the scorpions have won and are now the only critters in the house.  We don't see them that often, only in the sink some mornings or under a rug occasionally.
My only encounter was in the fall while transferring back to winter clothes from the closet.  i put on a folded pair of jeans from the previous winter and that's where he was hiding out.  he got me 5 or 6 times while falling down the pant leg.   Hurt like hell but as mentioned above, only for a short while.
We don't use sprays or poisons, and they crawl right through D.E.   As long as they are keeping all other crawlies away, I just leave them. They are usually just hidden between the cracks doing their thing.

A couple years ago my son was sitting on the floor and one of the tiny brown scorpions we have in the drier parts of our county came across the living room floor heading in his direction. He absolutely freaked out. Screaming and almost crying at 8 years old. I was kinda mad like, "calm down it's just a bug dude". I didn't realize at the time that he had never seen a scorpion before and was under the assumption that they were all drop-dead lethal, hahahaha.

A few years ago, I had backpacked into a beautiful subalpine lake with my wife and another couple, who brought their good ol uncle Sid. I don’t spend much time with Sid, and it’d been years since we’d hung out, but he always makes me laugh and has greatly deepened my appreciation of my wife’s favorite band Phish. I always liked Phish, but something about hanging with uncle Sid helped the music really  make sense.

The first morning at the lake, right about the time Sid came to join us all after breakfast, I went for a little dip.  When I came back to my clothes that I’d left on a rock and put them on, I felt a poke in my arm and a squirm in my sleeve. I instinctively swatted at it and shook my arm to get it out. As I saw the scorpion scurry out of my sleeve, I realized the colors of my shirt were pretty close to the lichen on the rocks and had made a reasonable place for Lil Scorpie to hide.

I’d never seen a scorpion in the region, but I knew they were around and should have been more careful. This was my first time being stung, so just in case of swelling I took off my wedding ring and put it in a safe place.

That was a good idea, as I was very distracted by Sid’s extremely strong personality for the next 12hrs. At one particular crescendo in our interaction, when I felt  overwhelmed by empathy for all things, I shouted to the void  “I hope I didn’t hurt you Scorpie!”. I imagined being that lil fella, just checking out a sweet (but Kindof smelly) new cave that somehow suddenly appeared in my territory, when all the sudden I am attacked by a giant fleshy pink thing trying to push me out of my new home. Of course I would have stung! Any respectable scorpion would.

For me, the human,  it turned out to be no worse physically  than a non allergic hornet sting, but I do think it made Sid’s personality seem a even stronger than usual. Sunset over the water was all the more beautiful, and I hope lil Scorpie is still enjoying his view to this day.