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Killer Bees!

Nothing terrifies me more than insects and spiders. Little creepy crawly piles of shit. You hear things like you swallow an average of five spiders a year (in your sleep), or that flies use you as a toilet, and it reduces my comfort level to 0. I know I shouldn’t be afraid of something tiny and mostly harmless, but you know what? I don’t like things touching me that I haven’t specifically asked to touch me. This isn’t limited to insects and spiders, but they seem to be the ones with no regard for other living objects, especially ones with rolled newspapers and fly-swatters. I’m pretty sure it goes deeper than that, though. Dogs jump on me and try to lick my crotch, and it doesn’t bother me. Cats look at me like I murdered their parents and will pay for my crimes, and it doesn’t bother me (P.S.: I no longer eat cats). Animals of all kinds have unusual perceptions of space (including humans — what is up with fuckers crowding you in line at the grocery store?), but most of the time if you do something like gently push a dog away from your penis so you can try licking it yourself, or saying to the guy behind you to take THREE FUCKING STEPS BACK before you stab him, they will take the hint. Not so with insects.

Also, every time I see one — even if it turns out to be a piece of lint, or something — I get a queasy “fight-or-flight” feeling, and my typical instinct is to RUN FOR MY FUCKING LIFE. From something 5000 times smaller than me. I may have had some insect-related trauma in my past, because that kind of instinct doesn’t even kick in when I see a vicious dog, foaming at the mouth, with no owner in sight and no fence to keep us apart. I get into my Mr. Furley karate stance and it’s fucking on.

A few years ago, I got stung by a yellowjacket. Shortly thereafter, I launched a misguided water-based assault while in a Vicodin haze (there would have been a link there, except I apparently forgot to blog it; enjoy this, instead!). This hasn’t improved Stan-insect relationships at all.

At lunch today, I sat in my car reading. Usually I go for a vigorous constitutional and return more in love with my job than ever, but I haven’t been able to do that so far this week. Here’s why (that’s right, you’re getting two blog entries for the price of one — brought to you buy Laziness™):

I work on a street that curves around, sort of like an L but with a reeeeeeeally curvy corner. I usually park on one end of the curve, so I have to clear traffic on both sides, causing quite a bit of head motion. Also, I lack depth perception (seriously!), so I sometimes have a rough time doing things like walking without looking down at my feet to make sure the ground is still there. And, to add insult to injury, the shoddy lawn curves downward, so the curb is a lot higher. These forces of nature, combined with traffic coming in my direction from either side of the curve, led me to trip on the raised curb and tumble into the middle of the street.

I staggered to my feet, waved the cars (both of which had to stop) past while I stared down like the embarrassment that I am, and limped to my car. Did I mention I was wearing a pair of jeans I’ve had since high school, which have become so threadbare they’re basically a loose conglomeration of patches with bits of the original denim in key, load-bearing areas? Yeah, so those broke apart without much difficulty, resulting in me scraping the shit out of my knees. Also, I scraped one elbow as my arms valiantly attempted to protect my valuable, valuable face from the asphalt.

The drive home was a little difficult, with all the vibration and the blood and pain. I bandaged the shit out of myself, but Friday was pretty miserable. I had to limp all over the place. It was good to have the weekend to recuperate, but I’m still not at 100%. The knees, with their annoying flexibility, are not the easiest body parts to heal, considering it’s not easy to keep them from moving around. I’m taking it a little easy on the “power-walking” until I don’t need to, you know, re-dress each wound every day.

So I was reading, and it’s a pretty nice day — cooler than it’s been in months, sunny, with a nice breeze blowing. After awhile, I got a little tired of the turgid prose of what I’m reading, so I got out my iPod and, I’m only partly ashamed to admit, cranked up some of my own disgusting songs, since I can’t very well listen to them during work hours. About halfway through this song, a particularly strong gust blew something into my car. It landed on the door handle. I turned to look at —

A bee. One inch from my arm.

I panicked and began thrashing around like the autistic boy who proved Fermat’s Last Theorem.* I’m pretty sure this is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do when faced with a nearby bee, but I can’t help myself. I react, do stupid things, then either apologize or complain about how nobody will accept my insincere apologies.

I rolled into the passenger seat, got all tangled in the headphone cable (with the iPod somehow finding itself behind my back, whipped open the passenger door and rolled out on the grassy knoll next to my car. I whirled around to get a visual on the bee —

— which hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Is it dead?” I wondered, considering the slight (disgusting) coolness factor in having a bee die, fall out of the air, and be pushed by the wind into my car.

Then I saw it move. Nausea rose. I had no idea what to do. I considered trying to shoo it out, but I thought it would either get confused and end up deeper in the car, or worse, turn on me. The first thing I did, to keep up the appearance that I’m not a creepy weirdo, was whip out my cell and dial Lucy, to give the impression I’m just a normal guy making a call, unable to get a signal from inside my car. Yeah, it’s weird, but it’s less weird than standing outside of a car for no apparen reason.

While I yammered, it occurred to me that I felt excruciating pain coming from the general knee area. Oh, that’s right: when I rolled my ass out of the car, I ended up slamming my semi-injured knees all over everything — adrenaline took over, but it was gone now, replaced with pain and a mild oozing sensation. Clearly, the scabs were obliterated. Lucy pretended to be sympathetic, even though I knew she was laughing on the inside, and then announced she had to hang up. I muttered some obscenities as a goodbye.

I went over to the driver’s side and whipped my jacket over the window, in an attempt to thwack the bee and either kill it, drag it out, or set it in motion so it got the fuck out of my car. When I removed the jacket, I peered into the car, and found…nothing.

The fuck? I checked the jacket out and saw neither bee guts nor a carcass fall out. I saw nothing fly away. I opened the door and gave a cursory examination around the area it would have fallen if it had, indeed, died. Nothing there.

Was it, perhaps, a ghost bee?

No, you idiot.

It might have gotten wedged under my seat accidentally. It might have flown away when I was distracted.

I left my windows cracked a little so it could fly or crawl out if it is indeed alive, but I’m dreading the drive home.

*I may have made up the autistic boy.

UPDATE, later on 9/11/07: Here’s an unusual conclusion. When I decided to crack my windows, I put my jacket and backpack into the trunk so my eggplant-colored 1993 Chrysler Concorde with the missing door panel wouldn’t entice any criminals. I drove home without incident, with the windows open as wide as possible (just in case). When I got home, I popped the trunk, pulled out my jacket — and saw a yellow streak blast off toward an evergreen. The fucking bee was on my jacket and just sat there, on the jacket, for four hours. I’ve been told my sweat has the distinctive odor of brown sugar and cinnamon Pop-Tarts. Could this have lured the bee to my jacket?

Posted by Stan on September 11, 2007 2:14 PM  | Permalink | Stories of Hilarity and Humiliation | Digg It