Something new happened to me this evening as I was mowing my lawn: I got stung by a frickin’ yellow-jacket. As this was the first time I had ever been stung by anything, this was something of a momentous occasion in my life, and as this is the Internet, I am compelled to recount the experience and exploit hyperbole as much as possible.
About a month ago, a swarm of yellow-jackets decided to take up residence in a small crevice that has formed below the drainpipe on the back porch. Originally thought to be merely the outcome of many rainstorms, the repurposed crevice was discovered by me when I noticed several yellow-and-black entities coming and going out of it. I thought nothing of it, minding my own business as I not only mowed around the hole, but trimmed the grass immediately adjacent to the hole with a gas trimmer for several weeks.
This week, however, was different. I didn’t need the trimmer to send the winged beasts into a frenzy. Attempting to give the hole a wide berth (as there were many yellow-jackets patrolling the borders and I did not wish to invade their personal space), I swung the lawn mower around and quickly moved on. Not more than a couple seconds after passing the colony, a couple daredevils broke off from the group to follow the lawn mower. Somehow, in their inaudible pheromone language, they split up, whereby one of the monstrosities followed the lawn mower and the other went to check out the two-legged creature lumbering after it.
It is at this point that the second of the rat patrol latched itself firmly on the bottom of my arm and stuck its evil stinger apparatus into the innocent fleshy area right above my elbow. Milliseconds must have elapsed from the time I lost sight of the attacker to the time I started getting a rather acute pain sensation. Turning my arm around to have a good look, it was obvious what was now happening and there was only one course of action that presented itself as viable: destroy.
Of course, during this whole ordeal there was only one course of action that my brain could conceive of, which was to scream like a banshee for 10-15 seconds while the pain intensified. It is perhaps to my disadvantage that my vocal cords acquiesced to this girlish behavior. Nonetheless, the pain eventually came under control after a short while and I began looking for any missing limbs. Thankfully, there were none and the only evidence that I had been horribly mangled was a small, swollen area. I looked for the stinger, hoping that the evildoer would have left his better half behind and I could revel in the fact that he would die miserably and alone. Alas, I could find no stinger.
Fearing the worst, I ran into the house to consult with Dr. Internet about my malady. The first course of action, I was to find out, was to make sure the stinger is not lodged inside the wound, and to use a credit card or other flat, plastic object to remove it. Reaching my hand around to my back pocket, I felt the absence of my wallet, and thus, my credit card. I desperately searched the nearby area for any type of credit card sized piece of plastic, but came up short. As a desperate solution, I ended up sprinting downstairs to my desk and tearing open a free credit card offer which just happened to include a sample product of approximately the correct dimensions.
Washing the wound was luckily the least embarrassing part of the entire ordeal, and consisted of me merely splashing water and soap on the mountain of swollen flesh that used to be my arm. Even though the pain has lessened somewhat over the past several hours, the pain is still present and likely will be for the next half a day or so. It gave me great pleasure, on the other hand, to utterly extinguish the nest in the small crevice next to the porch with the hose, and I will take satisfaction in flooding their safe haven with poisonous concoctions over the weekend.
Overall, there was an important lesson to be learned from today’s experience, and that is to be glad to discover that I am not allergic to insect stings.