Wasps Incoming

You'd think God** would get bored torturing the same person over and over again, but I'm happy (?) to report that is not the case.

Whilst taking time out from my busy schedule of scratching and bitching, I happened to discover a plump paper-wasp nest attached to the underside of our front door awning.

Right.In.Front.Of.Our.FRONT.Door.

Of course it is. It wouldn't be any fun if it was at the never used back door.

Having spared a few minutes of my valuable time to research the matter online, it seems the best solutions offered are:

A) Don a bee-keepers ensemble and carefully remove hive to a new location.

B) Call a professional exterminator to handle matters.

C) Handle it myself via the tree-hugger method of mixing up a sugar water solution, putting said solution inside a humane trap, humming ancient Sanskrit show-tunes and channeling the spirit of Gaia/Mother Earth while I explain to the little wasps why they must be relocated to a new energy grid far away from my front door which exists only within my own mind.

Huh.

A) - Just sent my bee-keepers outfit to the cleaners, won't be back til Tuesday.

B) - By now you'd think I'd have the exterminator on speed-dial, but I can't afford to.

C) - I'm going with this one. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? I get stung on one of my ten-zillion poison ivy blister-spots? Would I even notice it at this point??? Although, while there IS nearly 10% of my flesh not yet all deformed and red and welted and looking like human bubble wrap, I have to ask myself this important question ... is a wasp's aim really that good? Chances are 9 to 1 that I'll get stung somewhere on my body that's already hideously maimed.

I like those odds.

Plus, as an aside, even though I broke down and went to the Doc$tor Thursday for a steroid shot, my skin is still breaking out in new areas. I have NEVER before had a contact allergy this widespread, for this duration. I'm not even trying to be funny here, as while I know everyone's sick to death of hearing me whine ... honest to GOD, I'm covered and still breaking out in new areas: both legs, thighs, arms, some on trunk, neck, face, hands, etc. For some nutty reason my feet are just fine, which is weird because I was wearing standard-Summer-issue flip flops at the time. And, when I wake up in the morning, my eyes are so swollen and puffy that the lids impinge on my vision.

And yet ... I still love/respect nature, which is why I'm going to try to humanely relocate the nest ALL BY MYSELF. What could possibly go wrong? (??????)

If you never hear from me again (you wish), it's because wasps do not like having their *energy-field-lower-consciousness* being messed with by crabby menopausal old ladies.

No, seriously. True story:

So, last night, after having decided on the DIY humane method, I got busy. And by *busy* please insert the word *stupid*. I grabbed a wide mouthed paper sack, emptied a couple of sugar packets in the bottom, sprinkled water on top, and - armed with one of those long handled tongs for hard to reach places thingies - I bravely threw open the front door to confront Satan's tiny minions.

There I paused, mulling over possible plans of attack, where - 6 inches to the right of my face - zillions of wasps were at work enlarging their nest like their very lives depended on it (actually, their lives DO depend on it).

I paused again. They paused back. What we had here was a standoff. All involved parties held their collective breaths.

During all this pausing I had to reach down and scratch a new patch of blisters on my calf. I'm not sure, but I think a couple of the wasps started throwing up behind the nest. One smart ass started buzzing and swooping like he was high on the fumes from my Calamine lotion.

From deep within the nest issued the sound of sinister laughter. I did not know wasps could issue sinister.

Girding my loins (that was the most action I'd seen in a while), I gingerly placed the limp, soppy sugar-water bag directly on the deck underneath the wasp nest. My game plan was to use the tongs to carefully (!) detach the nest from beneath the awning, and transfer it to the bag below. Hopefully, the sugar water would distract the little stinkers from flying up out of the bag while I found somewhere else - way the hell far away from my front door - to deposit them.

In theory.

I reached up and actually *touched* the tongs to the nest. Halfway across the world, a 7.9 EQ hit the Philippines. And while I can't say for sure the two events were related, in my mind there will always remain that possibility.

Suddenly, all wasp-eyeballs were trained - not on the stupid tongs - but on ME. I could feel their beady little eyes, billions of them, fixed on my shaking hand.

I looked up at the nest, down at the bag, back UP at the nest, down to the bag which was looking less and less like a good idea.

Overhead, the sky rumbled in an ominous way (not kidding). I needed a cigarette.

Ominous things affect me that way.

Sooooooooooo. I go inside to smoke and rethink matters. On the laptop, I pull up the weather Doppler, and sure enough (still true story) - we are under a tornado watch.

While I am mulling over this latest bit of wonderful information, suddenly a tremendous downpour ensued. Temporarily defeated, I went to the door and gazed at the tiny paper bag wilting in the rain. The sugar water was now about 1 parts sugar to 100 gazillion parts water.

It rained all night. We are currently under another storm warning AND flood warning. Thank you Hurricane Isaac, or whateverthehell meteorologists are calling you now.

Now, unless this upcoming winter mimics last year and doesn't show up, in roughly 6 more weeks it should get cold enough at night that the wasps will leave/freeze/take a vaycay to Florida.

I can wait.

**I don't really think God is currently torturing me.

He already did it twenty years ago when both my kids were preschoolers, brought chicken pox home from the preschool, everybody caught it, including ME who at age 30 had never had it, and our A/C broke at the same time, which was the hottest part of July. Also, the hubby was absent visiting his folks in Fla.

***In case you didn't know, chicken pox in adults can get pretty ugly, pretty serious and all pretty fast. It royally sucked.

****I love putting goofy things in the *labels* section of the post options. Just to mess with the Google analytics thing. ;D