Monday, October 17, 2005

What is yellow and stripey and stingy and buzzes around annoyingly?

A whole frickin' herd of yellow jackets, that's what.

And it seems they have decided to take up residence in my house. Namely my toyroom.

This is so not acceptable.

Friday I killed twelve in my house. Yes, twelve. In. my. house. Saturday about six of them died by way of purple flyswatter. Yesterday I don't think I killed any, now that I think about it. Today I have killed eight. Bub killed one while he was here.

Evidently there is a nest somewhere and now that the temps have soared back up perilously close to 90 they decided to come out en force.

I am terrified of stinging insects. I was stung once on the leg by a wasp when I was 6. I turned on the outside hydrant and disturbed a nest. And then in high school one of those annoying "trash bees" crawled into my Coke can unbeknownst to me and I drank him. Stung my tongue and down my throat many, many times. So while I haven't been stung as many as some people, the experiences I've had are unforgettable and frankly, I am not fond of that kind of pain. We always keep multiple cans of that wasp and hornet spray in the house - the kind that will shoot like, 12 feet - because I'm too scared to hit bees and wasps with a flyswatter. Okay, so there are greasy splatters on all of my windows where I've sprayed the errant critters, but hey, I didn't get stung.

Well, I'm out of wasp spray. So I had to find a fly swatter and have been killing nasty stinging insects by hand. Er, swatter. You can't believe how fast my heart races when I have to do it! I'm really scared of them! AND I'm a bad shot. I can only hit things with a gun - but give me a bat or a flyswatter and it's just pathetic. BUT I'd rather risk pissing one off and getting stung myself, rather than one of my babies get stung.

This afternoon I totally missed one and in the process just made it furious with me. I was trying not to scream (even though I really wanted to) because it was naptime, so instead I set about frantically trying to backstep away. And in the process tripped over Strawberry Shortcake's strawberry-shaped house. The fact that I fell toward the ground saved me from getting stung, but now I'll be sporting a bruise the size on my calf.

I'll be so glad when Fall acts like Fall. All of the summer clothes I put up, we are now having to drag back out again. And obviously the insects are confused as hell.

4 comments:

Irish Divinity said...

You can kill them with just about anything aerosol. hairspray works, dusting stuff, most things that spray (household cleaners). I can't ever find the wasp spray, he seems to feel it necessary to keep it in his shop so I just grab something from under the cabinet and spray til it doesn't move!!!!!

MamaKBear said...

Oh my gosh! Flying, stinging things!! I am scared to death of them too! Got stung by a bee once when I was a lil girl..then when I was a bit older, probably around 10, I got stung right behind the ear by a wasp. Nope, I don't like that kinda pain either.

If those things were in MY house like that, I'd be tellin' Mr.KB "We are going to Mom's and calling the exterminator!" I'd never be able to sleep knowing there was a nest of those suckers somewhere in the house!

Good luck with that...I sure hope y'all don't get stung trying to get rid of 'em...I agree, though, I'd rather I got stung than my babies!

Queen Of Cheese said...

At the gym last night Bryce was tormenting a bee, to which I said as I walked by "I hope he stings you and swell to you burst for playing with that thing...when your done there grab some scissors and run them across the football field to your dad". Then I turned to see the deputy sheriff taking down my tag number.....good thing he was just joking (I REALLY HOPE HE WAS JUST JOKING!!!)

Redneck Diva said...

IrishDivinity-Hmh, I did not know that. I like the 22 foot shot wasp spray because it's an instant kill. And anything that involves stinging insects and instant death is always a good thing. Thanks for the tip! Next time we're out of the wasp spray I'll grab the Pledge.

MamaK-I'd die a thousand deaths if one of the babies got stung. I mean, it wasn't pleasant when Ab got stung tonight, but she's 9 and bigger and stuff. An 8 month old wouldn't take to a sting too well.

Mr. Diva would never go for calling an exterminator. We're so redneck that we just kill everything with liberal amounts of gunpowder, gasoline and duct tape. It worked for his ancestors so I guess we have to keep up the tradition. Yeeesh.

Mrs.Coach-ROFL Here's hoping!

Once I told my kids to go play in the road and my mother nearly fell out of her chair. She gasped and said, "WHAT IF THEY REALLY DID???" And my reply was, "Then they would be really stupid, now huh."

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