Imagine finding a scorpion in your bag on your trip through customs. That’s what happened to my friend on her way from Oaxaca back to the States. She had thought her boyfriend had planted a fake scorpion when she found a real one sitting atop her clothes during the bag checkpoint.
Now multiply that scorpion by 5,000 and live with them in a glass-enclosed showroom of a mall for 33 days. That’s what 39 year-old Kanchana Kaetkaew, a Thai scorpion handler, accomplished this new year. She didn’t walk away completely unscathed though; she was stung 13 times in that month’s time, but she has built up an immunity to the venom. Enduring that pain is enough for this Scorpion Queen, however, who In accomplishing this broke her own Guinness Book of World Records.