Today

One day, a scorpion looked around and decided that he wanted a change. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river. The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. "Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?" But knowing all about scorpians, the frog said, "If I let you on my back, you will sting me and kill me!" The scorpian argued, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!" Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. "Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN sting me & kill me?" said the frog. "Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!" So the frog agreed to take the scorpian across the river. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws sticking into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current. Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. "You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?" The scorpion shrugged, "I could not help myself. I'm a scorpian, it is my nature." Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river. Attributed to Aesop