Of Brushing Teeth and Scorpions

 Without going too much into Marcia’s personal hygiene and daily ablutions, I would point out that she has long been a dedicated tooth brusher. Even in Thailand, both morning and evening would find her at the sink working up a good foam and froth, followed by a generous rinse with vigorous swishing back and forth. The finale would be a grand expectoration of tooth-pasty water back into the sink and down the drain. Then off she would go, minty fresh to begin the day, or end it, as the case might be.

In juxtaposition to Marcia’s use of an oral dentifrice are the personal habits of scorpions. Googling the moisture needs of scorpions, one can learn that they “ent
er homes through plumbing while hunting for insects attracted to damp, cool spots, making bathrooms and  kitchen areas prime locations…..”. Who knew? We certainly didn’t but it wouldn’t have mattered much even if we did. Brushing teeth is just something we humans are trained to do. And scorpions or not, we’re trained to do it in the bathroom which apparently is also prime scorpion habitat.

So, one evening as Marcia was winding down her day, she went to the bathroom sink and brushed her teeth generating the usual foam. With froth a-dribbling, she grabbed a glass and poured herself a cup full (We didn’t drink the tap water anywhere in Thailand, so she poured from a pitcher we kept on the sink). She started to do her swishing rinse when lo and behold, she sensed something solid in the mix. She swished with a little less enthusiasm and more exploratory caution but couldn’t discern what was swimming in her mouth along with the used toothpaste and dinner debris.

A little concerned and mystified, she spit out into the sink to see a small critter doing a desperate breast stroke trying to keep from going down the drain. Picking it up, she was surprised to find a scorpion engaged in it’s last pitiful twitches before reaching it’s final expiration. Stem to stern, it was only a half inch long or so and by the time we saw it was well passed its ability to use it’s stinger.  But still, how many times does one brush their teeth with a scorpion? It was certainly something we never did back in Ohio and Marcia’s most memorable toothbrushing experience ever.

Despite Google naming bathrooms as prime scorpion habitat, that was the only time I recall seeing a scorpion in our bathroom and we never knowingly brushed our teeth with one again. We do have another scorpion story or two that we’ll get to in due course but wanted to feature this one here, since it is associated with Naw Bae’s house in Mae Sariang.