While paper makes up half their name
The sting suggests less tamer game
Falls prey, this an idle thought, for what
I need be giving is a lethal swat!
“Just grab the hose and lift it over that shrub, will ya”. At that moment, beachside, at Milikapiti, on Melville Island, all hell breaks loose. She screams, dances, runs round insanely, yelling hysterically, painfully. It took a moment to absorb the scene, but I run, inevitably joining the dance of the three hundred, wasps zeroing left, swipe, right, swipe, above and below, swipe, targeting two, as easy as one.
Such teeny small, weeny things,
nary a cent twould fit be-twixt their wings,
but packed complete with kryptonite
They leave a horrible, deadly bite
The beasties even come inside
To inspect the damage to our hide
We run and curse and flap abit
The ‘Mortein’ delivers a needed king-hit.
Red, raw, bleeding lumps grow menacingly, as clothes are stripped away and we sink, crammed into a hurriedly filled, calamine-infused bath. Seven minutes.
We eventually pick at each other; tweezers employed to draw the barbs. Tears, hiccups, blubbering easing, heart rates slowing, even reflective laughter at our intimate encounter with the beasties. Twenty minutes.
I am on alert for anaphylaxis. We sit en-bathed, refilled oft times for warmth, as we talk of the onslaught. Sixty minutes.
Heck, did I turn the hose off?