Settling into fall here in Mahoosuc Mills: pumpkins and apple cider, polar fleece on my morning walk. I’ve kind of lost interest in watering my mums. And when the sun shines, doesn’t everything seem to pop with color? Yellow and orange leaves against blue sky, dry leaves scattered on the ground, smelling of fall.
Seems like this time of year all the little flying and crawly creatures want to come inside. Every time I turn around, there’s another spider in the corner, lady bugs and the dreaded stink bugs on the walls. Where do they all come from? And wasps! For some reason, we have more than our fair share of these buggers in our bedroom. Don’t know how they’re getting in. I could vacuum ‘em up, sure, but I don’t like killing these pests. So the only alternative’s relocating them outside, and that can be an assignment!
The other day, there was this huge wasp flying around the bedroom. It actually woke me up from my nap. Once I was aware of him, it was impossible to just lie there. I opened a window and told the intruder it was time to leave. “Out you go, Mr. Wasp.” Then I closed the bedroom door, went into the kitchen and puttered around a bit.
A while later, I come back into the bedroom to see if he’d taken my advice. At first, I thought he had. Then I spotted him on the screen of another window. I put my Diet Coke down on the side table, opened the casement window wide and unhooked the screen. Thought I’d shake the critter off outside the window.
But he was having none of it. The wasp suddenly flew toward me, and I pulled back, hitting that can of Diet Coke and knocking it onto the floor. Once on the floor, that can proceeded to spin ‘round, shooting out a stream of soda in a circle like a lawn sprinkler, before finally coming to a stop in a foaming puddle of brown liquid. I admit, I did utter a few words that were not suitable for tender ears. Satisfied with the ruckus he’d created, Mr. Wasp went on his merry way.
“You bugger!”
Then I launched into the task of cleaning up the mess. I mean, this stuff was spattered on the curtains, the bedspread, the dust ruffle and the braid rug, as well as the floor. What a pain! My high minded wasp relocation program ended up costing me about a half hour, but everything seemed to clean up OK. On the great sliding scale of traumas, not a big deal, right?
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!
Here Ida Tell It: Mr. Wasp and Me