Michelle 1, Wasp 0

Yes – two posts in a day!

Having typed this story out of Facebook, I didn’t want to lose it!

My morning so far. My husband is out.

I get up and there is a massive wasp in the living room. I’m allergic to wasp stings. We have had a visit once a day by these inch long death merchants for the last couple of weeks. Most have left of their own accord. I’m on my own. I’m sure Buddha would side with my actions.

I got my fancy dollar store electric tennis bat thing and had a few swats at it. That just seemed to fire it up into a frenzy. Not my intended consequence. Finally I knocked it out the air (no mean feat for me, of course) and it fell behind the tv, of course.

Then I had to decide whether to switch my chair off before trying to get it again. If I switch it off I’m safe from hitting the joystick by accident and running myself, the dogs, the tv over. If I leave it on, it’s ready for a quick getaway. I leave it on.

I zap it a few more times and I can just reach it, up against the wall, so I smack it a few times for good measure with the side of the electric tennis bat thing. (It is a wasp or Michelle moment. And what if one of the dogs ate it, and Ian isn’t here? And I’m not posing for a photo with it, like the dentist that killed Cedric the lion)

Finally I think I’ve finished it off. I call my parents. I spend the phone call breathless. I’m absolutely exhausted from my death tussle, and just hoping no anacondas come and get me or something before Ian gets back, because really, with the wasp, I’m done.

As I’m talking to my mum, I keep saying “I can still hear some damn buzzing in the background. It’s like it’s haunting me.”

I get off the phone and think that there must be a load of them outside waiting to come and find their lost compatriot. I get back into my chair to go to shut the back door, and just as I’m making my way across the living room carpet, I see the damn thing. It’s not dead! It’s managed to limp its way, dragging its body about 3 feet from where I thought I had finished it off!!!

So I wasn’t going mad. It was still buzzing. And it isn’t anymore.

I seriously think that makers of protective gear should research wasps and their bodies – because this thing was repeatedly electrified, hit from the air and smacked repeatedly by the side of the electric tennis bat thing and it still survived!!! But being squashed under a shoe (which I had to find) and then inspected, and squashed some more in paper towel did the trick.

The MS Society is promoting a new hashtag right now – #strongerthanMS. I have my own version. #notonlystrongerthanMSbutstrongerthanthewasptoo.