Yesterday morning, Megan and I set off to play disc golf. We were so young, so innocent, so unprepared for the horrors that awaited us.
A few minutes into the drive (me behind the wheel), Megan looked in my direction, and her face contorted into fear. All due credit to her, she chose her words very carefully: “Jamey, can you roll down the back left window?”
I was concerned, but I trusted her instructions and followed suit. At this point, Megan was staring intently at the window behind me. “Okay, so, there is a wasp at the top of the window directly behind your head, but the window can’t roll down far enough to get it to move. It’s just sitting there.”
I should provide some context about fear before I continue. I have many paranoias, but I generally wouldn’t put wasps on that list. Spiders, yes. Ticks, yes. But wasps? I’m comfortable stepping up whenever a wasp gets in the house and needs to be dealt with.
The difference, however, is that I’m not trapped in my house. We were on a highway, so we were very much trapped in the car. Also, I know that Megan really really does not like wasps, but I was helpless to do anything to help her other than roll the window up and down and try to drive safely.
The good news is that the wasp seemed perfectly content to hang out on the window. The bad news was that it was in my blind spot, and I very much did not want to visually acknowledge just how close the wasp was to my face.
Also, to my right for the duration of the drive was Megan, who was literally leaning as far away from the wasp as possible, starting at it without blinking for a solid 15 minutes. Any time her facial expression changed, my first thought was, “The wasp is on the move!” Yet it stayed in one place the entire time.
I tried my best to relax, but my gut was tightly clenched the entire time. Is this how ulcers form?
Finally, we reached our destination, and I got out of the car right away. I opened the door behind me, brushed the wasp into the sky, and it immediately flew away. It was probably quite confused by the whole experience–it went from one side of St. Louis to another, all so two humans could throw plastic at metal baskets.
Overall, I have to say I’m VERY impressed with how both Megan and the wasp handled the close encounter. How do you think you would have reacted if you were in her position (or mine)?
Can’t wait for The Stephen King adaption of this story 🙂
Jamey, you need to write a novel , this is great writing!
Thanks! I’ve written a novel (unpublished), but my main creative outlet these days is game design. 🙂
My wife is a beekeeper and sometimes she uses my car when going to the location where she keeps them. When workin with them they sometimes attach themselves to the outfit she is wearing while working and then she gets it the car with them without noticing. It has occured a couple of times that the next day there are still 1 or more bees in the car when I use it the next day and I discover that on the high way. So I get where you are coming from. 🙂 Not to great a feeling. 😀
Wow! Are the bees calm by the time you join them in the car, or are they flying around?
At first they are very slow and just walking, but after a while they start flying again and buzzing. That’s when I get a bit nervous as well. 😛