"It's alive?"

Not the reaction one might expect when you surprise someone by flipping a scorpion into their hands.

But the wife is probably pretty used to me bringing strange things home. Even if it is almost ten o'clock at night, and all I was doing was presenting my program at a hunter safety class (a class which I forgot until the instructor called literally at the last minute).

And yeah, it was in a plastic juice bottle.

I just didn't tell her that when I flipped it.

But it is still way below freezing outside, the wind wailing and several feet of snow on the ground. "Where did you find it?"

A woman found it under her husband's seat when the class was over. The instructor simply instructed her to "stomp on it".

Neither she nor I wanted to do that.

So now I've got a scorpion in a bottle.

What do we do with it?

Can't keep it. Got nothing for scorpions in the house, and with nosy heelers, you don't dare keep anything that dangerous.

Not alive, anyway.

My first thought was a pet store. But we certainly don't want them going around selling native wildlife, even if it is just bugs.

My second thought was the garage, but hey, we might actually get around to cleaning that someday. Certainly don't want to find a family of scorpions when we do.

Likewise for the brush pile in the garden.

And there is no way to find some unfrozen nook or crack out in the country. People's water lines are freezing. The frost is meters down into the ground now.

Would freezing solid be more kind than stomping? I bet not.

Still, this scorpion is doomed. Neither of us is happy when all our alternatives are pared down to one.

Formalin. At least it can be a specimen for youth programs.

But stomping would have been kinder.