The other day I was asked a question that, although I can answer simply, it is much better to answer with a few stories. I was asked “When was the last time you were stung by a bee or wasp?”
Well, it just so happens that I have had 5 incidences of being stung… totaling 33 stings! Yeah, you read that right. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has been stung or swarmed more than me.
Now, the first time that I was swarmed it was just kids being dumb. But the other time I was much older and it is actually a pretty interesting story. And since I have been stung enough to pretty much be a professional on the subject, let me share my experience with you so that you can learn from my mistakes.
My mother had a neighbor who burned wood in his fireplace all year round. He didn’t need to, but he really enjoyed it. Apparently, he was offered some wood from someone he knew. However, what he thought was going to be a year’s worth of firewood ended up being a lifetime supply. My mother, being the good neighbor that she was, offered to store some of it under the very large deck that she had in her backyard. However, as time passed her neighbor knew that he would never use that large amount of fire wood and told her she could just get rid of it.
She called me up and asked if I would throw it all out for her. I was not excited for the job, it being the middle of summer and all, but it was under a deck and there were worse ways to spend a Saturday. So, I called my friend David and asked if he would help.
Now, one thing that is often forgotten about when working outside is all the bugs, and we ran into plenty this day! As the hours wore on, we were attacked by all kinds of creatures, but it wasn’t until a spider crawled up my arm that things started to get real.
Truth is, I really don’t hate spiders; In fact, I am pretty fascinated by them and love them from afar. But, when one the size of a chihuahua with a ten thousand babies on its back crawls up your arm, there is only one thing to do, we all know it, we are all kind of ashamed of it. That is to swat yourself multiple times WAY harder than is necessary to kill a spider while making noises like “Ughhh” and “Ahhaahhh” And my personal favorite “Huuhaaahuiihh” until you are finally free of the monster but somehow spend the rest of your day unsure if you actually ever got it or if it has now just made a new home in your hair.
Once I did this David had a field day making fun of me “Oh! You’re scawed of a wittle spwider?” He said. Clearly, he was not seeing the same Jumanji sized beast that I just fought off and who I am pretty sure just laughed at me as he casually sauntered away. Now, I have learned that when I have told this story in the past, I might be explaining the size of this spider a bit wrong. Because I was underselling it! It was easily 10 to 30 times larger than most cars and I remember gallantly fighting it off single handedly in what was nothing less than a battle for Earth itself! But that is neither here nor there.
So, after about an hour, the universally agreed on amount time it takes to shake off a vicious spider attack, we were starting to finish up when suddenly David said “Whoa. There are some bugs over here.” He had started to pull up some of the grass that had died under the deck. To this, I took my opportunity “Ohhh, are you scawed of a wittle” He interrupted me “There are a lot of bugs! Something weird is going…” And it was right then that I felt it. Something hit me in the head with the force of a rock. Was it a bb gun? Did I get shot? I reached up and started to pull whatever it was out of my hair. It fought, grabbed and tore at my head. Looking at it I feel like it took me a whole minute to see what it was. It was a bug of some kind and I could see pure hate and malice in its face. Its mandibles were trying to tear their way through my glove and as I finally made sense of what it was and why it was attacking me, many things happened all at once.
First, I heard David again, this time he was yelling “AH! OW! Ahhaahhh!!!”
Then I felt multiple dagger like stabs. First in my side! Then my neck! Then my back!
A loud roaring sound rumbled in my ears.
Looking up the sky was peppered with black specs zooming around me.
More stings! One was in my glove. One was trying to get into my ear.
Finally, I heard the desperate words erupt from my mouth as I reached out and grabbed David “RUUUUUN!”
Together we took off running as the sky around us went black. We ran around the deck and I knew that David was being stung as much as me. Continuously they got me. My back. My ankle. My head. When we made it inside, I ran to the bathroom and ripped my clothes off only the see the scariest sight of all, two of them flying out of my underwear… They weren’t just trying to sting me; they were trying to end all future ME’s! Looking around the bathroom I saw there were 10 if not more inside there with me. Knowing I could not stay in this small room with them I opened the door, covered myself with both hands and I yelled out “I’m sorry in advance for this David” and I took off running.
After fighting them off with a magazine I returned and I found David laying on the floor groaning. A book laid next to him and there were clear signs of a struggle. I asked him if he was alright and he nodded then pointed to sliding glass door that we ran in through and to my shock and horror the door, and all the windows around the house were covered in wasps. I was completely amazed to see how many of them there were. Standing there with my mouth hanging wide open I heard David say “We live here now…”
Well, there is nothing left to do now but get our revenge! David did not like the sound of that, but he knew as well as I did that this was war. Those Wasps were waiting for us. Besides, what were we going to do, just leave 2,000 wasps for my mother to take care of? The next few minutes went by like a really bad movie montage. Us picking up an item and trying to figure out if it would be an effective weapon. In the end we were armed with the strangest assortment of sport equipment ever used on a battlefield, and we went out to try to reach the hive.
As I am sure you guessed have, this went very poorly and we were awarded with many new wounds. But eventually we did make it to the hive, which was actually underground. Turned out that as David was pulling up dead grass, he was standing on top of it. Also turns out that Wasps are not into that kind of thing. So, using a trash bag we covered the hole that they were coming though and started to dig it up. Night had fallen at this point and the wasps seem tired and confused. We were not doing much better. Neither of us wanted to kill the wasps if we didn’t have to but we just didn’t see another way around it. We did what we had to.
We dug up the hive up and it was massive! It was round and weighed about 15 pounds. We wanted to see inside but knew that this was not a great idea. So, we froze the hive until the next day, and cleaned up the bodies that died in the war. The next day we cut the hive open and learned that there were thousands of wasps still inside. I ended up filling a 1-gallon Ice Cream pail, and two mason jars! We thought there were about 2500 wasps in total. At the end of the day David was stung 7 times and I was stung 11 times and we both got pretty sick.
I spoke to David not too long ago and he asked me “Hey, do you remember that time that you conned me into a war with a superior wasp army that ended with you grabbing your testicles and running out of a bathroom.”
Not, uh. Not my proudest moment.
Hey! If you like stories where trying to do the right thing goes horribly wrong, then you will love this one! No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
As Random As Random Gets 