Honk If You’re Hornet—A Rant About Wasps

I decided on the hornet inclusive title because a) LOL! and b) Hornets are jerks too.

So are wasps good for anything?

They’re part of our ecosystem (though I stand by my claim that they are invaders from another planet. Magnify them about 100x and you can totally imagine a wasp-alien eating Sigourney Weaver).

Wasps eat pests like aphids and other creepy little insects. They also act like tiny vultures by eating and disposing of dead rotting stuff. I know this is a helpful thing; the circle of life and all that, but why do they have to be so annoying about it?

Go ahead and eat my apple core, but can you at least wait until I put it down? And when a raccoon has a tantrum and hurls my food waste bin across my lawn, do you really have to swarm me like that? I’m merely trying to remove the potato peels and avocado pits from my driveway.

Wasps sting when they feel threatened and I guess I’d feel threatened too if somebody hit me with a badminton racket or swatted at me with angry flailing arms. So as much as I don’t care for them, I try not to kill them. Unless they fly into my car window or come inside my house. Then the truce is off.

Last week an unsuspecting wasp paid the ultimate price by flying down my top. I know my shirt was somewhat low cut but this doesn’t mean I was asking for it. I felt him crawl down into my cleavage and heard his muffled buzzing and I panicked.

I screamed. Of course.

And jumped around flailing. Obviously.

Then I leaned forward and tried to shimmy him free, but he was hopelessly trapped. I can’t believe he didn’t sting me. And this is why I feel guilty about what happened next.

I tore my shirt off over my head. Did I mention I was standing outside my house in my driveway? I didn’t fully expose my ‘uppers’ to the neighbourhood because thankfully I was wearing a tank top underneath my shirt, but in my struggling to get my outer shirt off, I exposed my ‘lowers’ as my tank rose up under my bust (Yup, I just said bust) and I revealed my entire lily white, untoned midriff.

But it had to be done. Wasp stings, sting. 

So there I was, standing in my driveway, exposed midriff heaving, all because of a tiny insect. A tiny insect who was now lying limp and partially squashed at my feet.

Little wasp, thank you for not stinging me. And sorry about the, you know, killing.

To summarize—What are wasps good for?

1. Eating other gross bugs.
2. Disposing of dead stuff.
3. Providing entertainment for a two block radius of my neighbourhood last Wednesday.

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