A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that somewhere in my garage there was a nest of these blighters.
I got a painful sting on my right hand between thumb and index finger.
My IT Guru, when I was showing him around, said upon seeing where they appeared to be coming from:
"If you come out at night, the nest will be sleeping, you can find the hole and spray"
This guy is like a Sheldon Cooper, a veritable genius.
Since he seems to know so much about so many things, I thought he might know about this factoid; events proved him wrong.
I struggle to sleep every night, and last night I rolled over and noticed a light outside that shouldn't be there. I pulled aside the curtain enough that I could tell what I was seeing was the battery charger on the shelf in the garage. Probably would have been fine, but I (being the fool that I am) decided to grab my flying insect spray and venture out to safe guard my battery and have a preemptive strike on the nest.
I turned on the overhead lights, did the battery first. Pretty much no sign of the wasps.
I was also wearing a head lamp, a shirt with the sleeves cut off, shorts and sandals.
As soon as I made a noise removing the battery from the charger, one or two flew out.
Using a long board, I moved a couple of small appliances that were haphazardly lying around, and the attack began.
I sprayed in the direction they were coming from (I still don't know if it is underground, or INSIDE that box (I suspect the latter)
↑This video was taken just a few moments ago↑
So for my troubles (at MIDNIGHT last night) I now have two fresh stings on my right hand, two more around my right elbow, one on the top rim of my right ear, another behind my ear and another on my neck.
I went out, got that video, closed the front door and got out my spray can and tried to fog the place.
And hour went by, and I went back out, opened the garage door to check, and was immediately buzzed by a couple on patrol.
SEVEN new stings last night, which once I came in, shed my shirt, and pulled one outta my hair, I put on some ointment, but I knew already that would be pointless.
I had already taken a Zyrtec (anti histamine) at bed, but I took TWO 50 Mg Benadryl, and a prednisone (anti inflammatory Steroid drug) then began the ordeal of trying to sleep ☹️
As you can see, it was almost 4 AM before I could actually call myself sleeping.
A fitful affair it was indeed.
Moral of this story?
Never go out in the middle of the night battling venomous insects based on the well intentioned advice of a computer genius.
"A fools late night adventure"
by
Jerry E Smith
©07/09/2023
