Everyone thinks they are merely urban legends. You know the ones about the tarantula in the grapes and the scorpion in the bananas? Well, sometimes they are based in reality.

The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia, reported on May 26, 2008, that a scorpion stung a girl at one of the state’s Wal-Marts.

A family shopping for Memorial Day food on Sunday afternoon at the Barboursville (West Virginia) Wal-Mart ended up in the hospital after their daughter was stung by a scorpion.

Megan Templeton was in the produce department picking out a seedless watermelon when she was stung. The scorpion, it is theorized, got into the crate when it was shipped from Mexico.

The scorpion, said her father William Templeton, stung her finger. She was taken to Cabell Huntington Hospital to be monitored for any allergic reaction.

The store manager caught the scorpion, which was a tan, inch-long example of an unidentified species.

The Associated Press later noted that most of the nearly 2,000 kinds of scorpions are not dangerous to humans.

Richard Coyle, senior director of international affairs for Wal-Mart, said store employees believe the problem was with a single shipment of watermelons.

“We are very concerned,” he said. “This is a very rare incident. When I spoke with the store manager, she said in her 17 years she had never heard of something like this.”

I would imagine for our West Virginia readers, you may wish to check to see if seedless watermelons are on sale at the state’s Wal-Marts in the next few days.