Wasps

It’ll be wasp season soon —he says, well aware that the very idea of “seasons” is an increasingly futile one— and so any slight buzzing has me frantically scanning for something, anything, I can use as a weapon.

I don’t think I’ve ever told the story of when I was stung.

It was, I think, my Dad’s birthday. I can recall helping my Mum organise a surprise holiday for him around that time too. A special birthday then, his 50th?

Anyway, they’d booked a meal for friends and family to celebrate, and we all got dressed up in our semi-formal finery and sat down for a birthday lunch.

I can’t recall what course we were at, but a wasp entered the room. It zipped around, causing a fuss as wasps are wont to do, before it headed for me.

With a well-placed swipe of my rolled-up cloth napkin, I rendered it inert and it fell to the floor.

Huzzah!

No more buzzing, although we couldn’t find the wee bugger, so presumed it had crawled off and was “gone”.

Reader, it was not gone.

A few minutes later I felt something tickling my calf, something inside my trousers.

Then the tell-tale buzz.

Then the mild, rising panic as I realised what was going on.

I clamped my hands around my leg to prevent it climbing higher and, in the process, provoked it.

Three swift stings later I got up and tried to extricate myself from the room with as little fuss as possible, after all, one mustn’t make a scene!

Except everyone was watching, having already witnessed me flailing around, and so I left the room to the sound of my Mum shouting, “Just take your trousers off!”

Gee, thanks Mum!

The hotel staff were wonderful, sourcing some tea tree oil to put on the stings, and I, and my trousers, returned to finish our lunch.

So no, I am not a fan of wasps.

That said, part of me knows they’re still an important part of the ecosystem, so these days I do try to help them escape should they venture into the house.

Although, having been stung twice by one that had somehow made its way inside my trousers, I reserve the right to panic a little first.

There is, of course, more to wasps than just being annoying, so try and be nice, remember that they are part of the ecosystem of life, and consider that that wasp in your beer might just be a stressed-out, unemployed single mother.