Why I’m Carrying A Spatula This Morning
Posted on April 7, 2006 by jonners99
The thing about bats and sharks and other things that frighten people is the person’s lack of knowledge about the creature. I’ve never been stung by a bee, and throughout my childhood I heard horror stories from friends about their bee stings. One friend was stung three times and she’s deathly allergic and had to go to the hospital. My sister stepped on a bee when she was too little to understand stingers. She screamed and fell into the grass and wailed with all the lung capacity of a three-year-old high-altitude baby. I can only assume from these reactions the experience is unpleasant, possibly painful.
Last summer my task was to paint the house, inside and out (don’t ask about the pink basement – I’m too ashamed to speak of it). While brushing an ever-so-slightly darker shade of tan over the tan eaves at the back of the garage a hornet zipped past my left eye, causing me to nearly topple off the ladder into the mint bushes below. After smearing a darker shade of tan across my jeans and righting myself on the ladder, I peeped over the roof and gasped in shock. Under a loose roof tile several hornets crawled in and out of a dark, nesty hole. I clattered down the ladder and into the garage. I snatched a can of Raid insecticide meant especially for “wasps, hornets and bees,” donned a hat, rolled down my sleeves and pulled a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. The battle began as I mounted the ladder again, aerosol can in one hand, paintbrush in the other.
I used up the whole can of Raid and every ounce of my courage in destroying that nest, the one under the shed, and the two others I found above the front door. All that remained were a pair of paint splattered jeans (evidence of my jitteriness), the shrivelled bodies of four colonies of hornets (evidence of my victory), and my now unshakeable fear of things buzzing toward my face.
Last night as I stood placidly at the Lee House kitchen sink I heard an all-too familiar and menacing drone behind me. I spun around, sending droplets of water spinning across the floor. Caught in the pile of tinsel left from negligence to put away Christmas decorations was the largest bumblebee I have ever seen. It had a wingspan the length of my pinkie, and its black furry body trembled as it bounced angrily against the window. It twitched tarantula-like legs on the glass in its attempt to break back into the sunlight outside. The worst part was its visible stinger, a brown needle worthy of the respect and fear of children (and nineteen-year-olds) everywhere.
The sponge I held dropped to the counter with a splat of soap and water as I scampered out of the room and shut the door behind me. In the hall I met Jess and gasped out the terrible sight within the kitchen. She gave me the advice mothers have told panicky children since the first bee stung Cain and he went crying to Eve:
“If you leave it alone, it will leave you alone.”
I didn’t believe this for a minute – I kept the kitchen door shut lest the bumblebee fly into the hall, into my bedroom, lose itself among the furniture and come crawling all over me with its germs and pollen and intent to stab while I slept. Perhaps it would find its way back out the open window. Perhaps it would die in the tinsel.
None of these imaginings came true. This morning I crept into the kitchen for breakfast and found the bee alive and buzzing, still crawling through the tinsel and bumbling into the window. I couldn’t bring myself to even boil a kettle of tea, for soon the bee had found its way onto the floor and was crawling closer and closer. I snatched a granola bar for sustenance and a spatula for defence and scrambled out of the room again, hoping by the time I return for lunch the monster will give up and die before I do.
