Jun 16 2008
Bzzt
I killed a wasp this morning.
I am hideously afraid of wasps. If you’ve ever seen me around a wasp, bee, hornet, or other relative of that insect family, you know how I react. Imagine, if you will, the reaction a pill bug has when you nudge it gently with your finger. That is approximately what I look like around bees usually.
Last time there was a wasp in the house, I barely managed to grab my phone and shut the door on the room it was in, before sitting at the bottom of the stairs and having a massive panic attack. Seriously. I managed to call a friend to come deal with it, but other than that I did not move from my bottom stair. I sat there, shaking and crying, ’til my friend arrived.
This morning I was about to leave the house for work when I saw Charlie acting very weird. He was up on the back of the couch looking like he was about to try to pounce the ceiling. There on the ceiling was the wasp. [Heart jumps.]
I got the fly swatter, and tried to whack it. Miss. [Heart starts trying to climb into throat.]
It stayed at the ceiling level though. Good. So I followed it around my living room and kitchen, yelling at it to land, whilst simultaneously trying to not step on Charlie and to keep my heart from jumping out of my chest and moving to another state. After a couple more missed swats [whimper], it landed at the window. Thwap!
Ok, now I have a possibly angry wasp trapped between a fly swatter and a window. I was afraid to move the fly swatter without being really sure it was dead. So I grabbed the nearest thing I could reach, which happened to be a large serving spoon, and whacked it. A lot. Eww. Note to self: Wash curtain and spoon. Twice. Maybe three times for good measure. But at least it was definitely dead. I flushed what was left of the carcass, just to be sure.
And then I grabbed Charlie and sat on the bottom step, shaking.
But I did it.
WHOO! Good for you!
About a week after we moved into our house, I walked through the dining room and was confronted with a spider that my lizard-brain told me was about the size of my head, but was probably actually about two inches in diameter. No one else was home, so I had to go find a broom and kill it by myself, and it felt exactly like what you’re describing here, ending with a mixed bag of terror and exhilaration. (I could not come close enough to the body to flush it. I edged waaaay around it until Matt got home, and then made him do it for me.)
This, by the way, is why I like having a cat in the house. Cats eat bugs. Including spiders. And wasps.