It’s springtime, and flowers and fauna all over the Bay area are in full regalia, reveling in their roles and relationship to the sun and rain. Birds and butterflies are everywhere, enjoying nature’s most anticipated time of the year.
But we can never have anything nice. The wild card always has to show up, uninvited, to the party; the one who you don’t trust when he goes in the house; the one who may be cool and just enjoy a dip in the pool, or who may get all up in your face because he’s a dick like that.
In nature, that dick is called a wasp.
Because, seriously, wasps are the thugs of the insect world. They don’t give a single fuck. Like thugs, they show no fear and are quick to anger. Another thing is that unlike most insects, who get all stove-up when they end up in a swimming pool, wasps are such bad-asses that they can literally stand on the water when they’re thirsty and take a long cool pull like Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules drinking Brett’s Sprite to wash down that tasty Kahuna Burger; unwavering eye contact the whole time.
Also, they don’t seem bothered by personal space boundaries. I’m not sure if they just don’t see us very well or if they actually like to try us, all in our face posturing and thumping their thorax, yelling, “You want some of this!? You want some of me!?” I’m pretty confident it’s the latter, though I don’t have any scientific evidence to back that up.
Full disclosure, these jokers have been on my shit list since childhood. I had a few stings as a young kid, totally didn’t see them coming, and my memory is that their sting was like a hot iron burning my skin.
Traumatized is probably a fair word to describe the aftermath, because to this day I have a ridiculous response when any of these jack-officers comes near me, including but not limited to: screaming, flailing my arms, jumping in the pool and hiding under the water, leaving the area altogether, and forgetting I know any words that aren’t curse words.
Their very presence makes me resentful and uncomfortable in nature, or more commonly, in my backyard. Yeah yeah yeah they pollinate and do stuff for the earth and whatever. Fuck that.
But I’m getting a little better. As of late I’ve broom-beat a couple of them to death. They think they’re going to Amityville Horror me in my own house (They’ve been showing up inside and I don’t know how they’re getting in and you shut up about there probably being a wasp nest in the attic). I regret that my 4-year-old had to hear the cornucopia of profanities that accompanied that fight, but thug life ain’t for bitches.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2016.