Wimpy And Silly Person

It was a wonderful day and evening. The Awesome Boyfriend surprised me by taking the afternoon off, surprised me again with flowers, and surprised me a third time with a new camera (that has about a hundred bells and whistles). We had a good dinner, wonderful dessert (made with his loving hands), and we slept soundly. An all-around perfect day.

So as I padded out to the kitchen this morning to get my day started, I wasn't ready for it. The buzzing. The almost-furious sound of something that was as mad as a hornet. In fact - it was a wasp, but it was as mad as a hornet.

It was silhouetted perfectly as the sun beamed through the kitchen window. I backed away slowly and happened to glance at the clock in the kitchen, which read 9:08am. I moved the cat into the bedroom, giving her instruction that her morning nap was gonna come early, and closed the door. I returned to the doorway of the kitchen and gave myself permission to freak out a little bit. And then I started to get a plan together.

I'd seen it done once, at a wedding reception when I was just a child. The bee that wouldn't leave the guests alone. The usher that rushed over with a champagne flute, tossed out the champagne and placed the open glass over the bee so as to trap it. Then watched, in awe, as he moved it to the edge of the table, swirled the glass around a few times to confuse and daze the creature, and then picked up the glass and placed a napkin over it. He then walked over to the water fountain and dunked the package - bee, napkin, glass and all. He did this as 'tho he'd done this a thousand times. Made it look so easy.

I can deal with a lot of things when pressed. Countless nests of cockroaches in abandoned houses in Mississippi, sure thing. The occasional cricket or spider, you bet ('tho I don't like being surprised by them). Even snakes - if I know where they are first, I'm alright. Hesitant, but alright. Something about buzzing flying things 'tho just unnerves me to no end. And bees are one thing but wasps? Hell, wasps can sting ya' all damn day long.

All of this was going through my head. How do you get a wasp outta your kitchen? Take off his hat? (No, that's how ya' get the Pope outta your Volkswagon.) I did what any reasonable person would - I grabbed the kitchen towels, my purse, and the longest pair of kitchen tongs we have. I also grabbed a medium-sized glass mixing bowl, in case I screwed up my courage to try the "wasp under glass" recipe that I'd seen so long ago.

I also called The Awesome Boyfriend.

Now I knew (and logic states) that there was nothing he could really do about our wasp in the kitchen. I just needed to give myself time to figure out my plan of attack. After a short conversation, it was back to me and the wasp.

And so it went.

For an hour.

I watched as it flew from one window to the other, giving me time to adjust the blinds on the first. I watched (from a hallway) as it left the kitchen to check out the living room. I turned on my laptop (to do research on "natural wasp repellents/killers one can make from common hallway items") and cringed as the wasp found our birthday flowers and visited each one. (By the way - there are no common hallway items that can be used to kill wasps. Maybe books, but one would have to be REALLY sure about their aim if trying that. And near to the wasp, too. I wanted to find something where I could be three rooms away and killing the wasp.)

I watched, now armed with my tongs holding a wadded up dish towel I'd soaked in liquid soap from the bathroom (an idea from the Internet search), as the wasp returned to the first kitchen window. I slowly moved to the other window and opened it, with a prayer of departure for the wasp. "Look - I don't wanna get close enough to hurt you or get hurt, and you don't want me to hurt you, either" I pleaded. "Just leave - and tell your buddies that this place isn't worth visiting" but there he sat.

I glanced out my now-open window and asked our neighbor if she had wasp killer (she didn't) and when I returned my gaze to the unwanted house guest ...

... it was not there.

Crap.

If there's anything worse than having a wasp in your house in full view, it's having one in your house that ISN'T in view.

I waited.

For about 15 more minutes I waited.

I got more brave and moved closer to the window. I gingerly moved the blinds. No wasp. I stared up to the top of the window, both praying to see the wasp and praying to not see it. I did not see it. I continued to wait and, after a few more minutes, decided that it had used the space between the window and the wall to depart from the indoors. I closed the window blinds, closed the other window, peaked in on the cat (who was deep into nap-mode), and left for my coffee run - an hour and a half later than I'd intended.

I passed our neighbor, who was watering her flower bed. She asked if I'd removed the pest and I said it'd removed itself. She then said that one had just started to buzz around her so I decided to believe it was the same one.

When I returned home later (from coffee AND from buying two different wasp-killing sprays), I carefully opened the door to survey the wreckage. The long tongs were on the counter, next to a soap-soaked towel and a glass mixing bowl. Blinds were askew or unopened. As I slowly started to return everything to normal, I marveled again at how calm that usher had disposed of that bee.

I may never be that brave ... but I'd be ok if I never have to find out.