Can't Fight Evolution

Another less than interesting day at work. I had to take the trash out to the dumpster- I regard this as a somewhat odorous, but necessary, part of work in retail. I headed out, with a reminder from my boss- "don't forget to close the door". The door being one of those little plastic sliding things on the side of the dumpster. Okay, I said, no problem. I dropped off the trash, and went to close the dumpster. Out of nowhere, several yellowjackets decide to say howdy. I'm not sure if this is the common name for them, but that's what we always called them- they are medium-sized members of the wasp family, decked out in yellow and black stripes. They are also highly ill-tempered and aggressive. As it turns out, we had quite the infestation in the dumpster- it became a virtual metropolis of the little buggers. So leave it to me to go and wake them up. Of course, I didn't find out about the pest problem until after I had come back inside, but more on this later. I happened to have a chunk of cardboard I was also on the way to pitch, so as the troops came marching out, I managed to send a couple over the far horizon. However, there were more to come. I learned several important lessons from this. One, wasps will protect their hive, even if you don't have the slightest interest in it. If they see you as a threat, they will, as Shakespeare once wrote, go ballistic. Two, they are really fast. Three, wasp stings hurt like hell. It's not really their fault, I guess- they're just acting according to their nature. My boss, standing close by, witnessed the whole thing, and said, "Well, I guess that spray didn't work." Ah. How nice to know that now. However, I've had much worse, and it did make a pretty funny story in the break room. Someone was kind enough to find me some anti-inflammatory, (we keep some on hand due to the fact that some people don't react well to pool chemicals) and I did get to sit down for a few minutes. All in all, both good and bad, much like the rest of life. I'm told wasps are different from bees, in that bees have barbed stingers- they can only sting once, and hurt themselves in the process- they cannot retract their stingers, so leave a little bit of themselves with you. Wasps, however, have smooth stingers, and can sting multiple times. I'm told they will sting even after their limited venom supply has been exhausted. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test this theory, as I was too busy getting the hell out of there at the time. Interesting creatures, though- evidently they specialize in defending their hive, so that the young wasps can go on and in their time make baby wasps, and so on down the line. This would be why cans of Raid allow you to spray the nest from so far away. Well, I guess you really do learn something every day.