You have what in your pants??
May 29th 2010 00:44
On more than one occasion, my mother-in-law has graciously bragged about me to her friends and family saying how I'm really "doing it the Aussie way" by hanging my wash. I guess I should mention that we don't actually own a dryer out here in the bush, but either way, I hang it out. It's not as bad as you would think. In fact, I have grown to like it. You're out in the sun, the breeze (some days), you have beautiful wildlife all around and it gives you time to contemplate. So aside from the odd rainy day, I've found it very easy to adapt to.
Now, as most people may know about me, and for those that don't, I am an animal lover. Not just animals but my love even extends to <em>most</em> bugs. Mosquitoes, flies and cockroaches however, if you ask me, are in a category all their own and deserve to be extinguished. That being said, there are these wasps here that make little honeycombs everywhere and before long, you've got quite the wasp community going on, on something as odd as say, oh...I don't know, your clothesline. I have a firm, don't-bother-them-and-they-wo n't-bother-you stance on bees and the sort, mainly because I don't want them to sting me if I do attempt an assassination.
Well, one day after discovering some wasps had decided to make a new home inside some hanging clothespins, I just simply avoided that row of clothespins. That is to say after <em>almost </em>grabbing said clothespins. Anyway, for a couple of weeks I hung out clothes, took some pictures of them, and just sort of secretly fascinated over the creativity in their choice of location.
Now, as happens when you have children, a house, a husband, shopping, cooking, cleaning, la la la, things get behind. So, I may have let the clothes hang on the line for a couple of days. Having never had a problem in the past doing this, I wasn't worried much about it. So when I decided to take the kids into town to visit the grandparents for the weekend, I went out to the line, removed the clothes and promptly folded and packed them in my suitcase. What I didn't know, was when it gets cold, wasps like to look for a more suitable, heated place in which to bed down for the night. You can see where this is going.
So, I'm at the in-laws, I take a shower and head into the bedroom to put on my warm, American made fleece pajama pants. I pull them on and ZAP! something that felt like a couple of splinters alerts me that there may be something inside my pajama pants. A little confused, I pull up the left pant leg and run my fingers over my calf. Feeling nothing odd but a little stinging, I continue to pull my pants up and ZAP! ZAP! something hits me twice in the right thigh. Now, I'm not an entomologist by trade, but at this point I realized there must be something in my pants and really wanted to get them off as quickly as possible. I yank the pajama pants down and watch as a wasp comes falling out of the leg. I drop the pajama pants, pull on the pants I had on that day and run screaming from the room into the front lounge where my mother-in-law, husband and his brother are sitting. I yell, "I was just stung twice by wasps!!!!"
My brother-in-law , not realizing I had switced pants, starts yelling, "Take your pants off! Take your pants off!" My husband found this hilarious after the fact and only slightly accused him of trying to use the situation to his advantage. My mother-in-law who comes in a saintly second only to Mother Theresa starts yelling, "Where's the book?" "Where's the book?" She was referring the the first aid book that normally stays magnetized to the side of the refrigerator
So eventually she finds the book, looks up stings, and we find out that I've been stung by the European Wasp that has the ability to not only sting multiple times, but doesn't lose its stinger, thus, it doesn't die. I tell my husband there is one in the bedroom, he goes in and kills it, and we hang the pajama pants outside where at least two more wasps, that we saw, climb out of the pants. We promptly sprayed them dead.
Now, you may be thinking, "What a wuss." It's not that I am afraid of being stung, I've had three kids, I know pain. It's the fact that I pulled on a piece of clothing that was housing at least three wasps. Wouldn't one be enough? I'm sure the nightmares will be often and numerous. So needless to say, just for the winter, I may give up the hope of being the ultimate Aussie bush woman and just tumble dry my clothes.
Wasps:1, me:0
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Bugs count for me as a big reason not to move to the country, let alone the bush.
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