Scorpio rising

My kids are on spring break and since we have a spanking new mini-van, which I love so much I do indeed want to marry it and have a million of its babies, I came up with the brilliant idea to load everyone up in it and drive to Tennessee to visit my parents. Never mind that deadline for the June/July issue is coming up. Never mind that David would not be able to come and I would drive all that way by myself and I am almost as scared of highway driving as I am of flying. Nope, I said I would do it and it turns out that when I say stuff like that, everyone believes me, so two days ago I packed up everything I thought one woman and two kids would need and got up at 4 a.m. to hit the road early.

I managed to drive the whole way in one day, though by the time we pulled into the driveway, I had permanent butt-numbness and when I went to bed that night, I still felt like I was hurtling downhill at 70 miles an hour. What happened to the 55mph speed limit? That was a reasonable pace. Seventy is what I consider an elude-the-cops sort of speed. It took me a while to work up to 70; I don't think I got there until somewhere in the middle of Virginia. Yes, I am a big sissy cry-baby.

There is not much to say about the visit so far. We have only been here a day. But if anyone is planning to visit Tennessee, you should know that it is no longer safe here. The state has apparently been the victim of some sort of plague:

  
SCORPIONS! This was INSIDE my parents' house. They crawl in under the french doors, and were apparently enough of a problem that they had to call an exterminator. So this one was dead by the time it crawled over the perimeter of poison and ended up in the house.

So was this one, who came in the next morning:

But you just know that there are more getting in who are resistant to scorpion spray, and they're probably in my suitcase right now, having scorpion sex and squirting out millions of scorpion babies, which I will then unknowingly bring to Maryland, introducing a new species to the state which will thrive and multiply and probably kill off all the labrador retrievers and take over the state legislature.

For which I apologize in advance.

Research indicates that these scorpions are actually native to Tennessee, but I think they're just telling us that to prevent a mass panic. I grew up in Tennessee and never once saw a damn scorpion. I think these have been sent as punishment for all the gun shops and porn parlors in a state where they try to outlaw saying the word "gay" in schools. "Dear Lord, I'm sorry for not makin' it to church this Sunday, but they got in a new shipment of Fleshlights down at the Smut Hut, and I had to get there before they sold out. Got so excited, I shot m'self in the foot. Shot the dog, too. Now I gotta go pick up some fireworks and Kona cottons for Mabel or I'm the one'll get shot next."