The Secret Lives of Wasps

My ultra-strong-willed child decided to head out on a rebellious jag the other day. Threatening to run off by himself to an activity I forbade, he found himself lingering outside the house, waiting for me to intervene.

I did intervene, but not until I heard a blood-curdling scream. He ran to the front door, his hand cupping his ear, screaming. I moved his hand and discovered a wasp. When all was calm again, we found only one sting. I bit my tongue and managed not to say anything like “serves you right you rebellious little almost kindergartener!”

Instead, my mother-bear instincts kicked in. As I have been religiously murdering insects as they slept in little holes in our walkway, I somehow managed to miss the three (or possibly more) nests of yellow jackets having taken up residence in our siding.

Since this discovery, I have begun a nightly ritual of massacring them all with a ridiculous amount of deadly chemicals. This ritual is not a simple as it may seem. You see, last week, I too was a victim of a vicious yellow jacket’s sting. Never having been stung before, I whimpered and whined and cowered in my house. Now terrified of more attacks, I figured I’d arm myself to the hilt. I borrowed the local bee-lady’s bee hat and gloves, tucked my shirt in my pants, my pants in my shoes. Duct-taped the bee hat to my hoodie zipped to my chin, strapped on a head-lamp, grabbed my cans of deadly foam and headed outside.

It was a terrible scene—foam spraying, insects dying. But before dying, some of them managed to swarm the crazy lady in the ridiculous get-up just so they could watch her scream and run for the house trailing a stream of wasp-killer.

“WHAT DO I DOOOOO?!!??!!”

It would have been hilarious to watch, had I not been said crazy lady.

"I waznot elekted to watch my people zuffer and die while you dizcuss this invasion in a komittee." --QA