War on Wasps

Twice in the past few days, I've been assaulted by large wasps inside my house. I fear these two incursions into my safety zone is a prelude for a mass attack at some point in the future. I have yet to determine their point of insertion into friendly lines, thus a full-scale inspection of the perimeter is in order.

On Saturday evening, while lying in bed talking to my fiance, a large paper wasp (I ascertained its nature by gathering intel online) flew through my line of sight. Immediately, adrenaline enabled me to roll off the bed and crawl through my bedroom door, closing it behind me to trap the enemy and to escape an imminent threat of being injected with venom from its ovipositor - originally designed as a tube for the laying of eggs but reengineered to hold toxins designed for defense and to kill their prey. Twenty-four years in the Army prepared me to defend myself from this airborne assault.

With a sick daughter and a baby in the house, I knew I couldn't simply allow the infiltrator to remain until it founds its egress the same way it got in. Ruling out a broom, which was too flimsy to deliver a killing blow, I opted for a shoe. I cautiously reentered my bedroom, closing the door behind me. All the while, I'm talking to my fiance on the phone - apprising her of my situation in case reinforcements or medivac needed to be called in. Finally I spotted the wasp on the corner of my book case. I struck it with a might blow that caused books to topple over. The wasp, much larger than most I've seen and obviously on some sort of growth hormone or steroids, simply shrugs off the blow and leaps into the air, circles the blades of my ceiling fan and aligns itself on approach in retaliation for my drawing first blood. As it flies in deliberately and slowly, I knock it down in mid-air, demonstrating great hand-eye coordination for someone of my advanced years. It slams to the floor, stunned and angry. I can hear it buzzing; so I bend over and deliver six solid blows. At this point, I observe that the enemy is unable to fly, but is still mobile. As it begins to crawl in my direction, I wonder what it will take to kill this fiend. So I gather all my strength and call on God to help me. I said, "In (slap) the Name (bam) of Jesus (pow)(boom) die you @*@&#&#&*%!" My fiance is cracking up on the other end of the phone.

I sit back on the bed, sweating from exertion. The wasp moves again, though clearly broken. I shake my head, just as Apollo Creed did when Rocky Balboa wouldn't stay down after been repeatedly knocked on his keister. But although I respected the wasp's strength and tenacity, I knew that it was behooving of me to end this stand-off and protect my loved ones, and so that I could go to sleep without leaving one eye open in case this wasp had regenerative powers like David Banner. I took the point of my shoe and pressed it as hard as I could against the wasp, pinning it to the floor, and held it there until the wasp had time to suffocate. I watched until I saw another wing flicker, pounded it until the wasp's body split in two. Then I brought in the vacuum cleaner and sucked up the corpse, then removed the vacuum to the Florida room in case it was bionic like Lindsey Wagner. For only female wasps can sting.

I thought that the first attack was simply the result of a door left ajar too long, but this morning, as I was getting out of the shower, another large wasp flew within inches of my face. I leaped back into the shower, closing the door behind me, but quickly realized that I had three feet of open space above the door through which the wasp could attack. I realized that I could not be in such a confining space.

This time the wasp had caught me in a more precarious predicament. I was naked. Naturally, the first thing I did was to bend over and place a hand over my privates. I knew I could survive a sting to any other part of my body, even to my face, but a sting to my privates would probably be fatal. After all, the wasp's stinger was tiny and its target was perhaps a thousand times larger - or at least I'd like to think so.

Apparently the wasp was wary of me and kept its distance. Perhaps it was the mate of the one I'd slain in combat a few nights previously. Or it could have been the same wasp brought back from the pit of hell to finish what it started. Eventually, I was able to slide by the wasp and rush out the bathroom door, closing it behind to trap the wasp inside. This time I thought I needed the additional reach of the broom so I headed for the laundry room to retrieve one. I'd just started opening the door to the bedroom before I remembered I was naked, and wet. Grabbing a pair of shorts from a chair, I quickly put them on and got the broom. With my privates at least partially protected by cloth armor, I cautiously reentered the bathroom. The wasp was crawling around on the light fixture. I waited until it flew past me and landed on the mirror. It's a wonder it didn't crack when I struck it hard enough to turn over my shaving cream and mousse cans. The wasp, obviously as strong as its predecessor, shrugged off the blow and flew over to the window blinds to recover. At that point I decided that brute force alone wasn't going to rid me of this thing, so I opted to deploy chemical warfare in the form of TileEx Soap and Scum Remover. I followed that with some Clorox mold remover. The fumes almost made me pass out, but fortunately the wasp too was overcome and fell into the tub. I immediately turned on the hot water and grabbed the wand, drowning it for several minutes. Then I followed this with more Tilex and Clorox. I took a respite to shave, all the time watching for any sign of movement. After shaving, I used the corner of an envelope to scoop up the wasp and carry it over to the toilet where I flushed it down the toilet to make sure it was dead. For safety reasons, I closed the lid just in case it was able to find it's way back from death again. The smooth sides of the toilet would prevent it from scaling its walls. At this point, I needed another shower because I'd worked up a sweat. I also thought it couldn't hurt to flush more water down that drain and carry the demon spawn as far away from my house as possible.

It seems as though the chemical weapons are the most effective defense against this enemy. I will be stopping by supply channels, located at Wal-Mart, to obtain some wasp and hornet spray, Sevin dust, moth balls, ant and roach baits and anything else I can use to defend my family and home from invaders. If these precautions don't work, I'm going to call in the professionals; because I'm too out of shape to keep running from these darn bugs.