death to the white anglo-saxon protestants!

By Todd Stadler · Saturday, June 16, 2001 5:59pm

Yesterday I did battle with the wasps. The kind with six legs and a body clearly designed for evil. Why, they're nothing but wings, head, and stinger! No messing around with potentially nice functionality there.

I hate wasps with a vengeance. At least when they're in my room. If I see one outside, I at least have the option of running around like a little girl, screaming at the top of my lungs and waving my arms like I was trying to fly. But when they're in the same enclosed place where I sleep, one of us clearly has to die.

So I lose all rationality. A visceral fear takes hold of me. I am become The Wasp-Killer.

It all started when I realized that the buzzing I heard was not my friendly (or at least non-pain-inducing) neighborhood fly. Gripped with fear, I ran to the cabinet where we keep chemicals. Surely somewhere among the bottles of outdated (and possibly recalled) bathroom cleaners, there was something lethal I could lather these hated hymenoptera in.

I found a nasty old bottle of something claiming to kill some kind of insect, and figured that was good enough. I ran back to my room and soaked the window with its nasty-smelling liquid. Although the wasps didn't seem too disturbed by its chemical contents, I eventually seemed to have drowned them by sheer force.

But in order to defeat the wasps, you cannot triumph in winning just one battle. No, I knew they would be back, and this time, they would be angry. So I went out to Fred Meyer and bought some poison that was more wasp-centric. It also happened to come in a more powerful spray form. I had upped the munitions ante.

I'm ready for you, wasps. I know you're coming back, and I'm waiting for you, with my wasp spray.

Until then, I will have wasp-themed hallucinations, because all this wasp spray in my room is making me light-headed. You'd think I would open the window to let in some fresh air, but that's just what the wasps want me to do, see? That's how they and their hordes will get inside. Just like the Trojan horse. I'm no fool. I'm just going to wait here and seethe.