Tuesday, June 03, 2008

The bitch is back

Technically, summer doesn't start until June 21 but in my world it's officially summertime once the first flying insect invades the inner sanctum of my home. Wasps, bees, hornets -- they all have a place in nature but not in my guest bedroom. Got wings, stingers and flit or buzz about? Forget lunch. We're doing battle.

When my father was alive, the unsavory task of killing icky things in our house fell naturally to him. "Kill Spiders, Bugs, Set Mousetraps" were all among the items in the never-ending rider list tacked onto the "Man Of The House" contract given to every married man in America upon saying "I do." My dad was no exception. But since his passing nearly three years ago, it's been Me vs. The Icky and I've had a hard time coming to terms with my new role.

And so this afternoon when I heard the ominous buzz that anyone who despises wasps knows, dreads and, frankly, fears, I forced myself to face the fact that within the next half-hour I'd be pitted in a death match with enemy mine. Summer had made its ugly appearance known to me in the form of a she-wasp, her slender hourglass figure looking as sleek as any '40s-era Hollywood ingenue's.

This slim girl darted back and forth behind my guest room windowshade as I, crafty human, clocked her patterns. Pulling up the blinds, I watched as she then tried to go me one better by hiding behind the thick roll of blinds now topping the window. "Bitch," I muttered, growing impatient with our little chess match. Because I've been stung before by a wasp my dad thought he'd killed but which had only been stunned enough to wake up hell bent for revenge, I know better than to hack off a flying insect, armed with stinger, that's temperamental. But because I also remember the results when my dad sprayed half a can of Raid in my bedroom, trying to kill invading wasps without using the tried-and-true swat and squash technique, I'm not going to wait around for a wasp to just hang around and let me try to kill it. There has to be a catalyst. So I unrolled the blinds and, her choice hiding place literally going bye-bye, out she flew into the room at large -- pissy and swooping, likely not so much at me but just at my overall annoying presence. It wasn't personal and yet it was. It always is with wasps.

"BITCH!," I yelled. "YOU BITCH!" Clutching the swatter, I carefully got up onto a chair (remembering all the while that this was exactly how my Aunt Jean had broken her ankle in the early '80s) and tracked Miss Thing to the bedroom wall, near the ceiling, where she'd lit and was stalking around furiously. "BITCH!," I yelled again, mainly to steel myself. "BITCH! BITCH! BITCH!"

Watching the smashed, squashed corpse of this year's starlet swirl down the toilet, I didn't feel sorry for her at all. This is my turf and there's room for only one mistress. She is human and she errs, she has good days and more often than not, days that make her cry when she's all by herself and there's no one to hear. This girl doesn't have an hourglass figure, never has, likely never will and goes out of her way not to sting her fellows although she personally stings easily.

In my house, there is only one bitch. With a swatter.