A funny thing happened last night just shortly before I was going to come in and blog about the final combat brigade leaving Iraq.....or possibly more about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque".....or even about the latest poll that reveals that 18% of the American population (what geniuses) thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that).
I had ideas floating around in my head while I finished up watering the shrubs and plants in the front yard, just shortly before 8:00pm last night.....and then I was stung multiple times by a bee, or possibly plural "bees". It happened so quickly I don't know how many attacked me.
So pardon me for the somewhat misleading title to the entry....so what, you were expecting a story about a crooked New Jersey mayor being led away by the Feds in handcuffs? This is a quasi-political blog, and I reserve the right to shift gears whenever I wish....or at anytime I'm in discomfort or pain.
Anyway....while watering a small patch of flowers I felt something crawling on my leg; it was getting dark and I motioned to brush it off and it stung me. I yelled some choice expletives, one of which rhymed with "Brother Tucker"....and I was stung again....and again...and again, on various body parts.
So I ran back to the house, swearing and cursing a blue streak because of the all the stinging that took place in a matter of seconds....I got into the house....and I felt something crawling around in my teeshirt.
It was at least one of the culprits...a bee, the little bastard. I took off my shirt and threw it in the washing machine, and doused to little SOB with hot water. But it didn't kill him, he started to tread water. Here ya go...have some Clorox!
Die!!!!!
At that point I sat down to try and figure out what happened.
I did nothing to provoke an attack, and it happened after sunset- so there goes the wives' tales that say bees are dormant after dusk and won't attack unless they feel threatened. And actually this was the second time I had been stung in a week; last Friday one of the same species stung me on the foot while sweeping the front porch. there was a new nest in the aluminum siding of the house, I discovered, and took it out with a combination of pesticide, a bug zapper, and flypaper.
And like the previous attack, this one was unprovoked....I still don't know if it as more than one bee, or if there was a nest in that spot that isn't visible.
The bees are a wild species....I don't know what kind, and have been unable to get a definitive match from online research...they look similar to yellow jackets, but are smaller (maybe half as big), and have a real bad attitude.
I sat down after the attack, but wasn't really sure how many times I was stung. There is a theory John Madden had about football players with multiple injuries; you can only really hurt one place at a time....and he was right. So after a inventory of the stings I determined that I was stung four times in a matter of 10 seconds or so....my wrist, my thigh, the back of my head, and on my kneecap. The knee hurt the worst, right on the bony area with no fat, thin skin, and lots of nerves...and it still stings today.
I was wearing a baseball cap, and was stung in the area between the cap and the plastic adjuster. One bee flew up the leg to my shorts and stung my left thigh; I'm beckoning the spirit of Richard Pryor and thanking the powers that be for not letting that bee keep moving up my shorts and stinging my....OK, this is a family blog.
The one bee that flew under my shirt never stung me on the chest or back. He was probably disoriented from the darkness.....and it led to his watery demise.
I recovered his lifeless corpse...and will take him to Cook College today to se what kind of species he is, and what I can do about them.
Luckily, it was only four stings....it's recommended that for 10 or more you get to an ER, ASAP. And I never swelled up, or showed an allergic reaction, or had anything life threatening....just sore in one or two spots, still.
So...that's the scoop. I really wanted to break away from political discussions anyway. I really didn't want to do it this way.
Later!
No comments:
Post a Comment