The Wasps

Ouch sweetie, ouch! I was out in the garden tending to the flowers when I discovered wasps heading into, and coming out of, a hole in the ground. We've been having trouble with, what we thought were, bees hanging around Buddy's water bowl. I got the insect spray and headed back out to the wasps, the whole time my intuition was telling me that I shouldn't, actually, be doing this. This is not an advisable course of action, I was telling myself as I held the insect spray in place and pressed the spray button. But, you know, your idiot brain tells you that it will be okay, just this once.

I was worried about Buddy, as bulldogs are most likely allergic to bee and wasp stings, there is a high chance of him dying if he is stung.

Wow! They really do attack. Suddenly wasps were careering at me like bullets. I got stung on both hands, before Sam and I ran for the house. Once inside, I felt a wasp down my t-shirt and I got stung twice more before I could get my shirt off.

Wasp stings hurt, I can assure you. It is kind of a sting and burn kind of feeling. Each sting came up in, what looked like, large mosquito bites.

I caught the specimen that was down my shirt and put it in a jar. Initially, I wanted it for identification purposes just in case I had an allergic reaction. However, as the hours passed and I continued to feel okay, I have to admit that I got a perverse please from watching it get slower and slower and slower and finally curl into a foetal position and stop altogether, as the side of my chest burned and stung, as did my right shoulder, as did my right hand, as did my left middle finger. Sorry, Buddhists. (My boyfriend is a Buddhist, and curiously he made no attempt to rescue the wasp) Bad Christian! Give me the beads to count, or the hail how’s your father to recite, or the wall to wail at, or the philistines to go jihad on their arses, or the alter boy to molest, or point me in whichever direction, or whatever it is that religious types do in the name of their gods to atone for their sins.

I called the poison's phone number and apparently four wasp stings, probably, aren't going to be dangerous. Ten stings, or more, and you should, apparently, call an ambulance, immediately. If I developed a rash over my body, or started having breathing difficulties, I should go straight to hospital. The poisons guy said that we'd probably want to keep Buddy inside until the wasps were removed. 

So I called pest control and the nice lady said she would get their next available pest control professional to call me back, that was 5 hours ago. So Sam and I dressed up in protective gear, gloves, hats, and shoes, sweetie, looking a bit like Katherine Hepburn, the both of us, out of, um? Was it Suddenly Last Summer? We went out and dug up the nest and killed the fuckers.

We ran inside squealing a few times, let me tell you. We were careful. I think, luckily for us, it was probably a new nest, although Sam did dig out what seemed like, a large honeycomb structure with the white larvae, which we flung into a bin. We beat the wasps to death with the backs of our spades, like we were on the ice with the baby harp seals, or at that fence in Laramie, Wyoming, (I guess that one will always be too soon) and sprayed them with bug spray, like there had never been mention of an ozone layer ever, leaping about and squealing as we did.

Apparently, my bites will sting and burn for days.

I wanted a cigarette afterwards, but as I am on day 5 of quitting that, sadly, wasn't an option.