Spring has finally decided to make a legitimate appearance and with it comes a plethora of fauna that was holding back due to the cold and rainy weather.
Bees of every conceivable variety are attempting to set up housekeeping on our property, and based on past encounters with these lovely creations of God, I am not amused.
Like my sister is fond of saying, "Who's idea was it to load up the ark and invite flies, lice and pests aboard?" I can alter that sentiment with one of my own: "Just who's idea was it to load up yellow jackets, hornets, wasps and borer bees onto my personal 'ark'"?
While standing in the laundry room (why this particular room is the magnet for stinging insects is beyond me...), I heard an uncomfortably familiar sound buzzing nearby. Trying hard to keep my control, I called out to Thomas who had come in from his college class just a bit earlier.
"Bring in the swatter thingy and come get rid of this wasp!!!!"
Leisurely hardly describes the lack of haste. Glacial would be more like it.
He came into the room and after a couple of experimental waves chased it into the LIVING ROOM. Not cool!
Expressing my fear that the nasty little critter would simply avail himself of the privilege of using the phone to invite other unwanted guests into this larger space, I asked Thomas to stop yanking around and just smack the snot out of the critter.
By this point, my adrenalin level was high enough to have made an epi-pen unwarranted.
"But Mom, I'm not even sure this IS a wasp..."
My shrewd rejoinder: "I DON'T CARE WHAT THE HECK IT IS, BOY, KILL IT!!!!!"
This is a mercy killing for sure and for certain, because if it doesn't get killed, mercy will be begged by the recalcitrant bearer of the swatter-thingy who refused and was derelict in his duty to save me without laughing at my distress.
I'm sure he didn't mean to laugh... but he did.
All of this spring has sprung stuff is wonderful and it's already wearing thin. If the idea of enjoying nature means that I have to also endure the presence of stinging insects that view me as a moveable feast, I'm thinking that being a hermit is looking better and better with every passing moment.
I guess the frustration of this entire Shakespearian tragedy is not so much the possibility of my demise. I'm reasonably sure they CAN get along without me. Rather, the frustration comes in the absolute certainty that what I believe deep within every molecule of my being to be important RIGHT NOW just doesn't register as even a fractional blip on the radar of the average man in my household.
Their understanding of NOW comes nowhere near my timetable of action for same.
Now to the average male in my household means:
1. When I have reached the next level on the game I'm playing
2. When I have indexed and added this most recent dead person who needs temple work
3. When the show goes to commercial unless the commercials are really good or maybe even better than the show I was not watching until you called me
4. When I know by the tone in your voice that not only will you do it instead of waiting any longer, but you will remind me of it for all eternity even if we don't end up in the same kingdom
Just to be fair, I'm quite sure I'm in the non-responsive category on a lot of their own personal checklists of 'ways I have failed to improve their lives'. But dang it, when my life is threatened by some buzzing stinging thing, I don't care if the show or the game is in the last crucial seconds of play, my life ought to count just a bit more than that cute commercial for bathroom tissue with the talking bears.
I love nature.
I just wish nature loved me back and respected my need for some of them to love me at a distance without the 'you'd taste good with gravy' look in their beady little eyes.
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