If there is one thing I have learned in this life, it is all coins have two sides. Since Malibu has ideal weather, gorgeous beaches and mountains, there must be a price to be paid for being in this Garden of Eden, and, of course, there is.
Your chances of surviving here are quite slim. If the fires don’t burn you to a crisp, then the mudslides will crush your last breath. And if you are lucky enough to survive fire and mud, the earth will shake you so badly you will feel like you’re in a blender.
If natural disasters don’t get you, the animals and insects will. Behind every boulder lies a mountain lion in wait, under every bush a rattlesnake, and you never know when a tarantula will crawl over your face while you are fast asleep.
So you think I’m exaggerating, do you? Just a few weeks ago around midnight I decided to make my fifth or sixth trip to the kitchen for some of my wife’s fresh brownies when I observed a strange looking insect on my hallway floor. It reminded me of a baby lobster. It had two front crustacean looking claws, was not more than a couple of inches long, and wasn’t moving.
I decided in my infinite wisdom to remove the intruder and got some toilet paper in which to scoop up the bug. As I reached down something happened faster than a speeding bullet, and I felt an intense pain in my thumb. I then did the Mexican hat dance on this uninvited guest. In the meantime the pain got worse and I was concerned some of my most important appendages might start falling off.
I belatedly raced to the computer—something an intelligent human being would have done before not after trying to remove the little critter. Sure enough, it was obvious from the photos that I had been stung by a scorpion. I immediately called 911 and a lady far calmer than I told me a rescue unit would be at my home within minutes.
I barely hung up when a contingent of firemen showed up at my front door. They could not have been more thorough and professional. They reassured me that scorpions in this neck of the woods were not lethal and it was most unlikely parts of my body would fall off. They were so top of the line I gave them my wife’s brownies and went to bed hungry but alive.
