The wasps came down on top of my head, jabbing and digging into my flesh. I screamed and flailed like a budget table hamster at the pet store getting thrown in with the ball python. I slapped at my scalp, scooped up I don't know how many of the buzzing, flying needle bandits and cast them out like the little, black devils they were.
From the side of the house, to the front door, to the kitchen table all the way in the middle of the house, I screamed obscenities that would have added up to a sizable car payment if I kept a swear jar.
I do not keep a swear jar. That's just fucking ridiculous.
Sweating, head throbbing, both of the boys stared at me. The eldest laughed.
"What happened?"
"Fucking hornets, fucking wasps, God damned bees. I'll kill them. They are going to die." The top of my head throbbed. It hurt to blink. The words poured out of my mouth effortlessly.
The youngest gaped at me, eyes wide, jaw hanging slightly open. Me, swearing openly, is not a new thing. Me, holding my head and pledging murder while I uttered every conceivable oath, however, was new and it was scary because I seemed to mean it.
I ran my hand through my hair, felt for the wound and there was a lump. Looking in the mirror, between the shafts of thinning hair, I saw the wound. No blood. It just hurt.
"Oh, I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill them."
But not that day. Outside a gentle rain was falling. You can's spray a nest while it's raining. Don't ask me why? I'm sure it has to do with environmental concerns, the groundwater maybe, worries of killing the squirrels or something. I don't know, but that nest was safe.
The funny thing was is I'd seen the nest before --or so I'd been told.
"Sure, you told me not to worry about it," my girlfriend said.
I probably did.
Generally speaking, I'm a peaceful guy. When my girlfriend and I first started dating, I was reading a lot of Buddhist literature and one of the writers talked about avoiding unnecessary violence to other living things --even to things that annoyed you like insects.
Once, while sitting together, she'd spotted a spider, shrieked and pointed at it then demanded I get rid of it.
She'd meant kill it. Instead, I'd scooped it up in a napkin and taken it outside. She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Why did you do that?"
I explained and she wasn't impressed. I'd betrayed an important part of the social contract between men and women who are dating: I was supposed to kill things like spiders, just kill them; if necessary, with fire.
I still harbor a mostly live and let live sort of attitude.
A nest outside, if I'd seen it and not known for sure what kind of bees lived within, would I have said, "Oh, don't worry about it? They won't bother you if you don't bother them?"
Yeah, I would have done that.
Stupid hippie.
So, the unprovoked, Pearl Harbor-style attack on my head was my fault. I should have known better. I should have listened to early reconnaissance. I should have increased patrols in the Pacific or maybe, just maybe, I should have taken the nuclear option early, protected my own person by eliminating the threat beforehand.
I was lucky that the things just got me and not anyone else.
It took days to get the job done. First, it had to stop raining and the nest had to dry out. Second, I had to have the required $4.65 needed to buy a big, black can of bug spray --the more ecologically destructive the better.
As it happened, the wasps got an extra couple of days while I waited for a check to clear. I was broke. So, I spent at least three days just wishing and hating, which was sort of therapeutic.
Finally, when I had the money (or close enough as far as the grocery store was concerned), I stood from a safe distance and hosed the bleached paper orb down. Winged, black figures fell from the nest and plummeted silently to the ground and whatever heavenly reward is reserved for such ugly, hateful things.
I imagine they get to go to hell.
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