2001-07-27 � Stung

I was home sick yesterday. I had a migraine, the kind where I had blind spots in my eyes, and all the people I saw had colorful auras, and every odor makes me need to vomit. It was insane. I just wanted to climb into a cool dark soundless pit and twitch for a day or so. So that's kinda what I did.

Anyway, I have medication for these headaches (which usually aren't quite so bad). The medication requires me to eat or I'll barf up the pill which means it's not helping. So I came out of my bedroom and in my house, I saw a gigantical wasp! It was staggering large and menacing. AND IT WAS IN MY HOUSE! I felt very violated, but also very afraid.

Now the digression. A few years back, when I still lived with my parents, we discovered a huge hornets nest in our tree. This was no small hive. It was, we would later find out, home to 300- 500 of those bastards and the nest was the size of a basketball. We called a bee guy and he came out in full gear, sprayed ether into the nest and put it in a bucket. Then he sold the hive to people who milk hornets for venom to make anti-venom. I like to call these people "dumb." It's a technical term I learned in law school. Anyway, we were given strict instructions not to spend time in our yard for a couple of days because any of them that were out of the hive would come back and be pissed. And sure enough there was a mini-swarm outside for a while. We would run to the car with our shirts pulled over our heads. Except the girls thought that was immodest. They wore sheets and looked fundamentalist.

I had serious nightmares about that thing. It was horror-movie-esque. I didn't like bugs that sting before, but since then, I've liked them even less.

Ok, so back to my story. There I was, face to face with the enemy. So I ran into my bedroom and shut the door. I thought about calling maintenance, but I figured that would be too gay. So, I pretended to be straight and inexplicably fearless. I ventured back out to the main portion of my house, and spotted it on a light fixture. It was grinding it's mandibles together like the evil genius in a B-movie. I hated it so much.

I looked around for something to swat it with. I've been meaning to buy a fly swatter, but I've not gotten around to it. I had images of my attempt at hornecide being viewed by the wasp as playground taunting.

I tried a few swings with a rolled up newspaper. Too flimsy. With a shoe. Too clunky. I thought about trapping it with a towel and freeing it outside. Ruled that out �cause I wanted it dead.

I finally settled on a wooden spoon. Aerodynamic, sturdy, fits easily in my hand. I located the wasp and with a carefully aimed swat missed it.

It buzzed around and dive bombed me a few times. I started to panic and swat madly with my spoon. Twisting and twirling in an effort to.... oh hell. That part was crazyness. Finally it flew close enough to a wall that I saw my chance. With my Best Billy Blank Tae Bo maneuver I lashed out with my right leg.

Now, the good news is that the bugger is very, very dead and I did not get stung. Also it is good news that I've actually learned something from Billy Blanks. The bad news is that they're gonna take my deposit from me when they discover a size 11 hole in the Sheetrock about waist high. I've got a tapestry covering it for now, and if I need to get to the pipes for some reason there's a new access point. But the complex management is gonna be irritated.

Do you think they'll care that it was in the interest of hornecide?

Tell me about your bug phobias at [email protected]

Posted at 3:29 p.m.

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