MY FIRST AND HOPEFULLY LAST

Our daughter laughed at me. Oh, that's not unusual. When I didn't pronounce Michael Buble correctly, I got that laugh reserved for those naive. But that's not what I'm writing about today. But just to help other out-of-it-old guys, the accent is on the le and not the Bub.

You see, as an Arizona resident for going on 7 years, I had never seen a live scorpion. I've also never seen a live rattle snake, but that's fine: I don't want to encounter that guy either. But on our African trip, I spotted a blue scorpion with the help of a walking guide.

We stayed in tree houses at Phinda Game Lodge in South Africa. I thought they were high up in the tree, similar to where the Zulu tribes put their children to protect from animals at night. They were almost all solid glass, but they were only on 6 foot stilts; where they got the tree part is that no trees were destroyed in the building of 11 such structures at the Forest Lodge, one of half a dozen lodges at Phinda's 50,000 acre wildlife area. Only elephant fences separated the other animals from us.

Plus, there were no guards to shoot sling shots at baboons who might get near. That happened in Zimbabwe at the Victoria Falls Hotel. Technically, the guards only fired in the diection of the mango loving baboons, but I had a sling shot as a kid, and it was fun to shoot at real life stuff, so I didn't believe it for a minute, though I never saw them bring up any welts on any monkeys.

But the scorpion. He was on a dirt path as we were walking back to our tree house after a late dinner. Guides held flashlights to mark the way and to see that we didn't get too lost on unmarked paths. He spotted one, pointed it out, played with it to the displeasure of one scared guest. Our daughter, also on her way to her tree house just laughed and added, "He's not as poisonous as the little guys."

He was kinda cool looking. He was my first, but like a lot of unpleasant things, I don't need any more firsthand experiences with them.