an irrational fear of wasps

Sometimes the story does not go the way you plan.

The plan was to go home and collapse after training.  I was feeling ill, and there was a storm coming.  I was going to sort through files and watch the storm come in, maybe do some laundry if I felt up to it but otherwise relax and recuperate.

Then I saw the wasp.

I don't actually know if I'm really allergic to them, but they have always scared the bejeebers out of me.  Our basement used to be a haven for them.  Every spring, I would have to dodge the lurching zombie wasps coming to life as spring called to them even though it was still barely above freezing in our basement.

I have an irrational fear of wasps.  I think of them roughly the same way Allie thinks of spiders.  (Note the tattoos.)

And so I nearly ran down three flights of stairs and told the apartment manager about the wasp in the apartment and what I thought might be a wasp nest outside the window (I had thought it to be a bird's nest, but now I feared I was wrong).  Then I watched the wasp from the hall as it held me hostage.  For half an hour.  I prayed that it was a loner wasp with no friends at all.  An anorectic loner wasp, the only one of its kind able to squeeze through whatever hole/opening it had used to invade my home.

The manager sent the handyman up, and he whacked it and couldn't find the corpse and put in some more packing around the AC, which had lots of gaps after the last time he fixed it, apparently.  He was sorry he couldn't produce a corpse, but he whacked it pretty hard, so he was sure it was dead.  I want to see the body before I believe anything, but I know I have trust issues I need to work on, so I had to let him go when his phone rang the second time.

Later that night as the rains came down, I heard a familiar angry buzzing that sent a jolt of terror to the already not-feeling-so-hot pit of my stomach (also my spine and brain stem).  I turned around slowly, and there it was, dive bombing my recently turned on lights.  As soon as he moved away from the lights, I turned them off and looked at him.

No, it wasn't a zombie wasp; it was a recovered-from-near-death art-loving wasp hanging out around my painting where I couldn't kill it even if I wanted to, which I didn't, but it's not like I could call the poor maintenance guy back from his house  40 minutes away after hours just on the off chance that the thing might kill me overnight.

And so I stood in the hallway watching it and feeling sick and going through my options.  I could leave it alone and hope it left.  I could hide in my bedroom.  I could try to kill it, make it mad, and die.  I did not like any of these options.

After another half hour of being a hostage, I had enough.  I was not going to go hide out in my bedroom after stuffing something impenetrable in the two inch gap under the door.  (If I did that, I had no doubt he would be waiting for me the next morning in the bathroom, knife in hand and swastika tattoo firmly in place.)  I was going to kill the darned thing or quite possibly die trying.  I had files to sort, dagnabbit!

I moved furniture carefully out of the way, so that if I wounded him, I wouldn't have bits scattered on my couch or trapped behind something where once again, I could not confirm the death.  I kept both eyes on him at all times, but he was quite dedicated to art appreciation (I hope not a she laying eggs on my painting).

Space cleared, breathing ridiculously hard, and with a solid 2005 newspaper in hand, I turned on the light and lured the creature over to a whackable place.  Pushing down my fear (that if I did it wrong, the wasp would ride the breeze (of my failed whacking) up the newspaper and to my hand, where he would sting me, and I would die all alone, unable to even reach the phone to call for help), I whacked that thing like I my life really depended on this one blow. 

Then I pathetically took eight tries to brush him off the bookshelf with the humorously shaking newspaper onto the floor where I placed the newspaper nervously on top of him like a shroud, watching for any signs of sudden resurrection, and then stomped the ever living crap out of him just to be sure.  Controlling my ridiculous almost-sobbing, I then took the newspaper out into the hallway and left it there.  Yep, I didn't even have to worry about trying to scoop him off the floor, whimpering the whole time.  He was one with the newspaper.

I didn't even want to put it in the trash in my apartment because what if he came alive again or all his friends came seeking vengeance?  (I want them to be unsure of who killed him and fair-minded enough to know that they can't just punish random people without proof.) 

I'll take him to the dumpster tomorrow on the way to work when I'm a bit less hysterical.

The end.  I really, really, really pray that's the end.

The cricket chirps alone

It's only been a few days, but it's another bug-related post.  A cricket is trapped in the elevator shaft of my building, which is located on the other side of the wall my headboard is against. 

The good news is that the stairwell between us eats the sound of the cricket. 

The bad news is that I don't think the poor thing can get out. 

If bugs can be scared, I think it is, what with the random coming and going of the elevator and the footsteps and doors slamming and darkness.  If bugs can be confused, I think it is because it's started singing in the daytime because no daylight gets to it, so it sings when it's awake and in the dark.


Anthropomorphizing is a wonderful thing because it means I can think stuff like this and not have to actually cry for the bug because it is a bug and has a tiny bug mind and doesn't think about this stuff at all; I'm the one bringing the sadness to the table here.

The chirping makes me sad because it's pointless because no mate can hear it or get to it and because eventually the chirping will stop because the poor thing died alone.  But I feel sort of guiltily encouraged, too, because with all that, it still sings. 

Somehow, I don't think this would make a good children's book . . .