Today I set out to accomplish a mission in which I have been remiss this summer. A mission I usually tackle at the end of May. It's not so much that I'm a procrastinator (okay, I am, in everything but this mission) as that I had a good excuse this year, what with being in the hospital, weak as a kitten, barely able to draw breath.
My mission involves clearing the wraparound porch of stinging insects. I accept that challenge every year, and, I might add, buffing my fingernails on the front of my yellow-pin-striped camp shirt, I do a bang-up job of it. No one has ever been stung on our porch. Hick bears the responsibility of his yearly stingings by the yellow-jackets whose nest he continually mows-over in the BARn field. The BARn field is not my jurisdiction.
So, on the way back from a delicious, if problematic, frozen custard this afternoon, I declared to Hick and The Pony, from the shotgun seat of T-Hoe, that I was going to take care of those porch-ceiling nests as soon as we got home. It might have been the custard talking, but I was all pumped up and ready for some carnage. The Pony advised that I should also check the overhang of Juno's doghouse roof, because he has seen the enemy landing there. I agreed. I, too, had noticed the six-legged invaders staking out that territory. Heavens to Murgatroyd, I would not want my sweet, sweet Juno to have flashbacks to her puppyhood close call with those insects.
I left on my town clothes. Did not even change into something more comfortable for killing wasps. Besides, Crocs are not the preferred footware for insect-spraying. I went in the back door, right under an enemy camp, marched to the laundry room, grabbed my can of killer, and returned to the back porch just off the kitchen. I could see that squatter Ann in Juno's house. Oh, well. In every war, there are bound to be casualties. Ann has such coarse german shepherd hair that I was not really concerned about her succumbing to a venom injection. "Look out! I'm going to spray!" I told her that just to be fair. Even though I'm sure my voice to her sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher.
Slowly I turned. Step by step. Inch by inch. I crept toward that nest over the doorway. I know my personal insect-killing advisers told me to spray at night. However...we are talking about a world-class procrastinator who may or may not have been in the throes of frozen custard shock. Chocolate waffle cones don't eat themselves, you know. Now was good enough, to make sure it didn't slip my mind again. One lonely sentinel crawled across that papery nest. I shook the can of killer. Extended my arm, ready to flee like a novice lighting her first Blackcat firecracker. "Take THAT!" I pushed the built-in button on the plastic lid.
A FINE MIST PUFFED OUT!
Not a steady stream so powerful it knocked the nest from its lofty perch while soaking insects as much as a foot away with the backwash. Nope. And to make matters worse, the mist blew back toward my face on the gentle breeze coming off Poolio down below. CRAP!
I moved closer and managed to get some poison on that sentry. I turned to Juno's house and puffed my mist up under her pointed eave. Six stinging waspers hovered at my waist. If insects can swear, I think I know what they were saying. Then they dropped, one by one, and began to writhe on the porch boards. I stepped over them and headed for the roof corner overlooking the fake goldfish pond. The goldfish are real. The pond is fake. Three wasps sat on that nest. I extended my can and gave them a good misting. Or not. Because who knew there was a spiderweb protecting their home until the webbing filled up with mist particles? I tried another angle. More web. Eventually I got those wasps damp, and they fell one by one. I gave them an extra dose. Just because. My travels around the porch revealed that our usual stinging guests must have left us for greener pastures this summer.
I took my weapon back inside. Back to the laundry room, to the shelf over the washer. Where I saw two more cans, the most notable being the Black Flag Wasp and Stinging Insect Spray that claims to shoot 20 feet. Huh. In my hand was a can of Flying and Crawling Insect Spray, with pictures of a fly and an ant. Go figure.
I wish I had known that before I moisturized those wasps to death.
This brought back memories of college when they'd get in and we'd hairspray them to death. Good thing it was the '80s and we had abundant rations. I'm glad they didn't just get mad and sting you, which was sort of what I was expecting you'd say.
ReplyDeleteI do understand the power of procrastination but that spray really does work best at night when all the critters are inside. But I know you know that. Glad you weren't stung.
ReplyDeleteI once heard a buzzing on my back porch. A swarm of bees had gotten between the walls. Yikes! I hate those stingers.
ReplyDeleteQuick go with the good stuff and spray while it is night!
ReplyDeleteLove this phrase: Heavens to Murgatroyd. I haven't heard that in a while!
ReplyDeleteAre you taking some of the frustration that built up between August and May and venting it via those poor, defenseless insects?
ReplyDeleteShame on you.
Tammy,
ReplyDeleteIf you had Aqua Net, those stingin' demons would have been frozen in place like the crusty shells left by cicadas.
No, I have not been stung since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, walking barefoot across a patch of clover to visit my neighbor who had four gray tabby cats named after the Beatles. I stepped on a bee and my mom had to remove the stinger from between my toes. That must have given me immunity, because now I only have great appeal to mosquitoes and ticks.
*****
Stephen,
I believe you. But when I ascend from my dark basement lair at night, everyone else is asleep. I try not to leave the confines of the house, lest I lock myself out and have to spend a night under the stars. With the dead bodies of wasps I have just murdered.
******
Linda,
That sounds like a good prank that could have been engineered by Bill.
*****
joeh,
I appreciate that fire you lit under me, but we were having a horrendous thunderstorm at that time last night, and my internet was down, and, well, now it is daylight, and I can't be expected to remember your advice until dark.
*****
Lynn,
Well, I don't actually say it, because that would make me appear a bit weird. But I can write it, because the kind of people who call me weird don't read much.
*****
Sioux,
Not exactly. It's the frustration that build up between July 3 and July 13, when Hick was on vacation.