A Vancouver woman who was stung by a scorpion woke up thinking she'd rolled over onto a shard of glass.
"It was very, very painful," Rachel Fox said of the sharp sting she'd felt in one of her fingers.
As Fox became conscious, she slowly realized what she was staring at.
"It was this big, black, ugly thing that made no sense to me, with its little lobster claws and its tail."
Fox was staring at a scorpion, about twice the size of a quarter.
"It was so huge. It was like a little lobster," she said.
The scorpion bit her ring finger twice, then bit her shoulder. She said she started to notice a tingling feeling right away, and felt a bit disoriented.
Fortunately the scorpion's sting wasn't lethal.
Her roommate called for help, then the pair decided to kill Fox's attacker. They grabbed a can of Raid and a frying pan, and directed their vengeance at the 10-centimetre-long creepy crawler.
Because of its size, they were able to find the scorpion right away, and club it with the pan.
Though the eight-legged intruder was killed, how it got into Fox's bed is still a mystery.
Scorpions are not native to Fox's Coal Harbour neighbourhood, but can be found in the Okanagan. A Victoria woman also found one stuck to her bananas last year.
Fox said there was no tropical fruit in the apartment, so she thinks it may have hitched a ride in her luggage during a recent trip to Seattle.
Friends have suggested Fox get a scorpion tattoo to commemorate the rude awakening, but she said she plans to preserve it.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Jonathan Glasgow
