To Bee?



Ah, nature - the one element that is perceived enjoyable, yet has it in for humans. 





"It's not the size of the oponent, it’s the ferocity." – Cosmo Kramer Also, my husband.

  I may have a mild, irrational fear of bees.  It’s something I developed as a child, when bees would come near me and seemingly head towards my hair.  I’ve always been able to safely evade them, until I was stung as a teen, by a wasp living in the nest in an old car in the driveway. That was the first and only time I have ever personally been stung...that is, until last year.

  Last spring, we lived in a small town in eastern Oregon.  On a slightly overcast day, I had decided that my wild adventure for the day would be to get my groceries with Walmart Pick-Up. 

      After receiving my order, (while I was getting my life together to go inside the store to find two simple items that the employees could never find, but were always on the shelf), I noticed a slight prick on my arm- it felt kind of like a pinched nerve. As I processed this new sensation, I asked my dearest kiddos (whom I brough with me, because- "wild adventure") to inspect it, but I was still buckled into my seat and their view was completely obstructed. 

    Some sense came to me, so I pulled my visor mirror down and saw what appeared to be a minor bug bite or sting on my arm.  I found this mildly  disturbingl. I asked the kids to look around check for insects or anything weird that didn’t belong (this was not the first time unidentifiable insects appeared inside my car in Oregon).  They saw nothing.

    I decided to look straight down and there, on my black shirt, was a brightly colored yellow jacket.( The suspect didn’t even bother to conceal itself!) Naturally, my next step was to calmly (I was unbuckled by this time) open up my car door, stand up (obviously my mom jeans were unbuttoned due to comfort whilst driving), yank my shirt off, toss it to the ground, scream, and then take off running - away from my vehicle, the kids, and my newly acquired groceries.

      After I got my life together (and my dear treasures vanquished the bee from my shirt which was now going to be burned because you can’t just wash that kind of trauma away) I calmly came back to the car and a concerned employee asked me if I was okay. I may have been in tears by this time and yelled back, “No! I’m not okay! I just got stung by a yellow jacket!” and then I sat in the car, trying to make sense of what just happened. 

       The pain in my arm was increasing, and then I remembered that we had some antihistamines in the car.  I took two, but unfortunately, I now had to go inside the store to obtain my missing items from the order.  Feeling like a defeated hot mess, I made my purchase and went home to burn my now tainted shirt. 

      My opponent may have been tiny, but he was definitely ferocious, and won that day.  The lesson Ilearned from this? Always keep benadryl and a spare shirt in the car. 


 

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