Wasps! Run for the… couch

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2021 (1817 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The last thing we all needed as summer winds to an end was yet another reason to hide in our houses.

But that’s just the way life rolls when your city — and pretty much every other city on the continent — is besieged by a plague of overly aggressive wasps.

If you have been foolish enough to step outside in recent weeks, you will know that wasps are everywhere!

Thanks to this summer’s drought, wasp populations have exploded and the yellow-and-black pests are more aggressive than ever because bone-dry conditions have hurt their natural food source of insects and flowers.

What I’m trying to say is this appears to be a record-breaking season for wasps, which means it’s a terrible time for people like me, by which I mean major league wimps.

The tragic truth is I really, really hate wasps, but, for some reason, they find me irresistible. For your average wasp, this six-four, 320-pound newspaper columnist is one long and seductive drink of sweet nectar, if you can imagine that.

You know how you’ll be sitting on a patio with a large group of friends, enjoying a cold drink and savouring the warmth of a lovely end-of-summer day when, out of the blue, along comes a wasp with a bad attitude?

In my case, when that happens, the wasp will ignore everyone else at the table, zero in on me, and begin repeatedly bashing his little body into my forehead or helping himself to my tasty beverage.

“Don’t panic!” my friends will helpfully suggest, quoting the standard guidance of wasp experts. “Just ignore it and it will go away.”

After pondering their advice, I always react the same way — I leap to my feet, spin around like a whirling dervish, all the while slapping at my head, bravely pointing at everyone else at the table and shrieking: “STING THEM! STING THEM!”

Seeking enlightenment, a few years back I asked Winnipeg entomologist Taz Stuart why these pests are magnetically drawn to me, and he essentially said it’s because I have a pleasing aroma, which is not a good thing when it comes to stinging insects.

“They think you might be a big flower,” Stuart told me. “If you are wearing bright-coloured clothing or a nice-smelling cologne, then, hey, you are sweet and smelly and you might be a food source.

“Then that one wasp tells his neighbour and he tells his neighbour that, hey, this is a food source. Come and help us take as much back to the nest as we can.”

My unreasonable fear of wasps dates back a couple of decades to a fateful day when I was a member of the wedding party for one of my best friends.

There I was, sitting in the back of a limousine when, suddenly and without warning, one of the bevy of bridesmaids handed me her bouquet and the next thing I knew it felt as if someone was repeatedly ramming a red-hot steel poker into my wrist.

A rogue wasp hidden in the flowers decided (Why not?) to launch an all-out assault. In response, I bravely began to scream like a wounded woodland creature, which prompted the rest of the heroic bridesmaids to give me a look of sheer pity, then wallop my wrist with their bouquets until the wasp was flatter than a tiny pancake.

Since then, whenever I am in the same area code as a fully functioning wasp, I begin perspiring and panicking as though I were trapped in a cage with a flying Bengal tiger.

I am convinced that wasps — or possibly a large bee — will be the death of me. I do not see myself dying because of multiple stings. No, I will meet a grisly end when, while driving my car, a wasp flies in through an open window, causing me to realize the only logical course of action is to immediately drive into the side of the largest building in the immediate vicinity.

“There’s not much left of Doug,” the police statement will read. “But, fortunately, the wasp managed to escape without serious injury.”

Look, I realize wasps are part of nature and play an important role in pollinating plants, but in my view they are part of “outdoor nature” and should restrict their activities to forests and jungles and parks as opposed to “indoor nature,” which consists of couches, refrigerators and big-screen television sets.

I say that because last weekend I walked into our kitchen to obtain a cold adult beverage and, for mysterious reasons, decided to first wash my hands in the sink.

So I reached over for a squirt of disinfecting hand soap and there, parked on the handle of the dispenser, was… an angry Bengal tiger. OK, there was a wasp the size of a mature grapefruit.

Being a trained journalist, I knew precisely what to do. “HONEY,” I screeched to my wife, “there’s a WASP sitting on the soap dispenser and he’s staring at me.”

Which caused my wife to casually stride in, scowl disdainfully at me, then squish the uninvited guest with a piece of paper towel.

Until this invasion is over, I suggest everyone remain indoors and avoid smelling too good. Also, if you visit a patio, take the standard precaution of bringing along as many bridesmaids as possible.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca