Being sensitive isn't easy. A few weeks back I noticed a hornets' nest being built on my hibiscus plant on the balcony. This troubled me because I don't like hornets, but I also hate killing things. I monitored the situation for a few days, and asked some people at work what I should do. At a normal job, every one would say kill the suckers. I don't have a normal job. The answers ranged from "live and let live" (from a Buddhist), to "oooh, let me come over with my potato gun!" (James). The one opinion in common was that watching hornets build their nest is kinda cool and they completely understood my hesitation at taking it down. Over the weeks I tried to ignore the situation and secretly hoped the hornets could sense my distress causing them to nicely pack up and go somewhere else. Much to my surprise, the situation has just gotten worse! As of this morning, there were three huge hornets' nests on the balcony. I woke up this morning feeling cranky and decided the hornets have overstayed their welcome. I still didn't really want to kill them, but their nests were coming down.
Dean, being the man of the house (and also sensitive), was enlisted to do the actual nest-destroying. Of course the cats got locked up immediately which greatly distressed Wrigley. He obviously doesn't remember last summer when he lost a fight with a hornet and ended up at the animal hospital. Dean told me to sit on the arm of the couch and be in charge of opening and closing the sliding door to the balcony. He disappeared into the bedroom and came out looking ready to wage war against the hornets. He was wearing sweat pants, a turtleneck, goggles from freshman chemistry lab, leather work gloves and wielding a broom. He came over to balcony door and instructed me to open the sliding door and close it when given the codeword, which would be "hoochie mama" (Seinfeld fans should be familiar with this reference). Sounds like a reasonable plan, right? Chaos ensued. He managed to piss off the hornets several times, each time followed by a panicked "Hoochie mama! Hoochie mama!" Each time he shouted this, Wrigley's howls from the spare bedroom got more intense. He wanted in on this! Finally, he manged to take down two of the three nests and we have plans to take down the third tonight, after things have calmed down out there. No hornets were harmed in the process. Deano, you're my hero!
2 comments:
i'm sitting here 4th of july morning having coffee laughing my you know what off, you go deano!
You and Deano are better people than I. I found a wasps' nest on my favorite reading chair on my balcony last summer, I just threw the chair over the balcony and ran back into the house. The neighbors were stuck dealing with the wasps after that. I know, I know, I'm not going to heaven...
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