Wasp Week

I am nerdy and do enjoy a good amount of shark week on the discovery channel. Since it is warming up outside and bees, hornets and wasps are starting to fly around again, I think it is a good time to have Wasp Week.

Growing up in Texas, I would often be in the backyard with my siblings when we would hear cicadas screaming bloody murder and we would watch as a “cicada killer” wasp would stab its victim repeatedly in mid-flight while lowering it to the ground. The screeching cicada would be helpless as the gargantuan predator had swooped in from above and grabbed hold, never to let go until it was time to eat. When the screaming stopped the enormous wasp would carry away the not so small cicada. When we would see the cicada killers we would respect their space and not mess with them at all.

One day when I had just arrived at the pool that my friends and I used to frequent, I was walking around the pool with my shirt on still. My belly suddenly felt itchy so I reached in to scratch it. When my hand began scratching I felt what seemed to be an electric shock through my entire body that started from the end of my middle finger. I quickly pulled up the bottom of my shirt and started to shake it out when I heard a deep flapping of wings that vibrated the core of my soul. I soon beheld one of the largest “cicada killer” wasps I had ever seen. It flew up towards my face then went to make a getaway. In my moment of anger over being stung I wanted revenge on this buzzing beast and I grabbed a nearby child’s pool noodle and swung at the freakish monster. When the noodle actually hit, it felt like I smacked a baseball. The cicada killer fell to the ground and I ran over and stomped it to death with my sandals. I could have swore that it was about to lift my leg up before I killed it though, it was huge. To this day I still can’t believe that I was stung by a cicada killer and didn’t get carried away afterward.