Wasps have taken up residence on my front porch. I am not at one with them. In fact, while I love bees, I fear wasps. Even more, they make my kids nervous, and for good reason. These wasps – or “wasp-ezz,” as the Tiger used to call them – like to fly right in your face.
If they would just nest anywhere in my yard (apart from the kids’ swingset), we could quietly co-exist. But no. They’ve decided the cracks in my front-porch bricks are the bee’s wasp’s knees.
My husband set up a trap, but so far all it’s caught is one lousy mosquito. Chemicals are a last resort.
And so I’ve taken to chasing them with a flyswatter, shouting, “I’m the ferocious wasp hunter!”
This set the Bear into fits of giggles. “Mama? YOU?” He knows darn well I’m neither ferocious, nor a competent hunter, nor unafraid of wasps.
Maybe this is one of the transformations wrought by parenthood. In times gone by I would have yielded to the wasps. Now, I fight them. I’ve killed four of them, thus far, and a few others are MIA.
Perhaps bravery really isn’t about being fearless, but about overcoming our fears.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some swatting to do.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
One time I was babysitting and a kid saw a wasp on the ground & I threw a basketball at it. Surprisingly, it connnected. I was a hero!
And then one time bees made a nest in a girlfriend’s air conditoner and her brother posted a sign on the fridge that was divided into two halves. And it was a scorecard. BEES 0 / HUMANS 20
and that’s my bee stories.
’round these parts we say, “Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway.” My nearly 7 year old reminds me of that all the time.
Love your blog.
I’ll never forget the time a friend’s child was playing on our kid’s swing set when all of a sudden we heard a blood curdling scream. At first we couldn’t figure out what was causing it. When I ran down to check I saw that she was literally covered with wasps — there must have been 20 attacking her. I was able to beat them off and get her away from the area. Fortunately she wasn’t allergic, but as you can imagine she was in excruciating pain.
Oh yes when you are a parent you become fearless because you have no choice. Someone’s gotta do it.
You’re right. Bravery, or apparent bravery is when you want or need to do something enough to prioritise your reasons for not doing it against that. You may then decide that some of the risk may be imaginary, and the real risk is well worth not having to deal with regret, guilt, ETC for not having attempted it.
I’ve been told that when you kill a wasp, it secretes a hormone which lets other wasps know it’s been killed and that attracts them. I’ve no idea if it’s true or not but it renders me utterly unable to kill the damn things just in case!
Thanks for all the lovely moral support. And goodness – they are just wasps, after all! It’s *my* problem that I’m still rather phobic about them.
TsaphanBabe, it’s funny when our kids start giving us advice, isn’t it? And especially when it’s the same advice we’ve dished out to them?
Keitho, we had a similar swarm incident several years ago. I warned the Bear (who was maybe three at the time) to keep back, but his curiosity led him straight to the nest my husband was in the midst of sealing off. The wasps chased him clear ’round the yard, me following and trying to shoo them away. The only medicine that helped his misery was having ice cream for dinner.
Sugarmag, I know you’ve discovered you could do all kinds of stuff over the past couple of years. I actually thought about that while I was writing this post.
Reg, you have a great point about risk and how we often fail to perceive the real pitfalls.
Anji, I’ve got a couple of wasp corpses lying in the corner of the porch, on the theory that they may serve as a deterrent.
Yesterday my husband put caulking on the wasps’ favorite holes, so we’ll see if that helps!