Memo: Stuff I Did Today That Probably Embarrassed My Kids
- This morning during swim practice at the club:
I was minding my own business when a bee dive-bombed my arm and stung me, without any provocation whatsoever. I feel that I behaved with an impressive amount of decorum, but my kids say that I yelped and said “Shit!”- loud enough to be heard by the lifeguards and all the G-rated children and their mothers. - Then tonight in our backyard:
I was unfairly targeted and harrassed by a whole gang of wasps, and stung yet again! This time on my back. Twice in one day! What are the chances?
Note: A wasp sting hurts way more than a bee sting.
After that, I humiliated myself by cantering around the backyard while flapping my arms and whinnying like a hyena (I know that hyenas don’t whinny, but this is what I sounded like).
Even worse: I jumped into the pool with all of my clothes on. And my shoes!
Whinnying.
My kids were dumbstruck. Usually to get me into the pool you have to light an atom bomb under my ass – but here I was suddenly in the pool with them, fully clothed. Swimming. Flailing.
That’s when the gang of wasps came after me like Kamikaze pilots and we all had to go underwater for a period of time.
Plantain is the best cure for a sting. Ella taught me this. It grows everywhere – grab some leaves, chew them, & place them on top of the sting to minimize pain and remove swelling.
A completely and utterly unprovoked attack.
All I did was poke the wasp nest over our sliding door with a pool noodle and knock it to the ground and whap it a few more times with the noodle.
That’s all. (Sorry, PETA, but those little shits were building a big-assed condo right over our door.)
The worst part about this was not that my children will have this memory of me, their mother, jumping into a swimming pool fully clothed and whinnying. It’s not that this will come up in therapy if they ever go and will be proof that their mother was a class-A kook. No. It’s that I’ve always prided myself on a certain arrogant fearlessness I have around bees and wasps, and people who are afraid of them. I’m always the one who flicks away the bee. I’m the one who gallantly helps protect the person who’s terrified of them. There was the day that the pool cleaner – a big, strapping manly man – hid behind me while I went after a wasp’s nest with a broom handle, fearlessly.
But I had never been stung by a wasp before.
Now that I have – and now that those wasps from that condominium I demolished have vengeance on their mind – I am afraid.
I am very, very afraid.
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Even if your kids were utterly embarrassed, one day you’ll be chuckling over this moment and remembering the day you went into the pool fully clothed. Great story!
Shit! I hope you’re okay!
I would have totally freaked out too. Though I bravely smoosh cockroaches with a rolled up newspaper, I yelp and scream like a little girl if any of those disgusting creatures fly up my arm.
Totally normal.
(and wow, how cool is it that Ella taught you about plantain!)
Twitter: MamaWantsThis
Ha ha ha ha ha Alison! PS: Do they have cockroaches in Malaysia?
Twitter: Adothemomalog
haha. First time I was stung by a bee was running around naked in the back yard as a 4 or 5 year old. Owwweee. We didn’t know about the plantains.
Twitter: PerfectingParen
So sorry to hear about your ordeal, but the image of you cantering across your back yard whinnying like a hyena made me laugh like a hyena myself
Once when I was mowing the lawn with a push mower (you know, the old-fashioned kind that you had to walk behind) I drove over an underground yellow-jacket nest. My family was treated to the sight of me GALLOPING across the front yard shrieking, removing my clothing as I went, since the yellow jackets were all up under my shirt! I got stung MANY times. I can’t say which is worse, bee, yellow jacket or wasp stings, though, because I’ve never been stung by different species in the same day 
Twitter: SusannaLHill
You GALLOPING across the yard – now that’s really really funny. I don’t know why people getting hurt/stung/falling down etc. gets me laughing but it does and maybe that’s a problem!
Twitter: Adothemomalog
If it’s a problem, I have it too! I find these stories hysterical
Twitter: SusannaLHill
I’m sorry you got stung but your description of the whole ordeal is so funny and visual, I am cracking up. At least you left your clothes on. If I found a spider on me, I’d be butt naked in one second and shrieking bloody murder loud enough for the whole county to hear!
Twitter: IzaTrapani
Iza you’re so hilarious. You should do a children’s book about getting stung by a bee…
Twitter: Adothemomalog
yikes! I’ve only been stung once — it really does hurt and me with no pool to jump into! And I’m also quite certain I wasn’t half as amusing as you!
Twitter: wordsxo
I bet you were.
Twitter: Adothemomalog
Honey, next time, go grab a hose with a variable nozzle, set it to “jet” and bomb the thing from a significant distance. Wasps can’t fly (well) with wet wings, and the water will demolish the paper nest and drown the larvae (and maybe some of those effing wasps). As long as your water pressure is good, you’ll be safely removed from the action.
Thank you!!!
Twitter: Adothemomalog
The most important thing is you’re okay! By the time your kids get married you’ll have forgotten all about this. ….of course, we’ll be here to remind you!
Twitter: AnnHolly
Ann,
Um, thanks?
(-;
Twitter: Adothemomalog
Yikes! Twice in one day! We’ve got several wasp condos on the south side of our house. I used to go after them several times a summer, but I’ve learned to wait till fall and knock ‘em all down. They are around the side and generally leave us alone. But over your door? Nasty little buggers!
Twitter: normalmomally
That’s a good idea to wait for Fall – I don’t know why they built it right over our sliding door, the little buggers.
Twitter: Adothemomalog
—-Oh, I am so sorry for you.
That Hurts! Like Hell.
But at the same time I have this visual of you ‘Whinnying and jumping in the pool’
Too bad the kids didn’t have a video going…You’d be viral on Youtube. xx
For once I’m relieved we didn’t have a video camera going. (-:
Twitter: Adothemomalog
Wow – what are the odds? And completely unprovoked too!
Yes, I was the victim.
Twitter: Adothemomalog
Sounds like you had a bad day.
Twitter: Cmsmitg57
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