Writing is like being able to put life into a snow globe. It takes the things that are too big and scary and reduces them into a form that I can put away when I want and look at from a distance. It also takes all that’s good in life and captures it into something I can take out when I want and look at close up and keep forever. It makes the bad things into something I can hold…and the good things into something I can hold onto. Both help so much that I need that little souvenir of life.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

You Better Watch Out, Santa

I’ll say this for them: they are rather polite as yellow jackets go. Not like the seething ones I discovered while cleaning out the gutters last summer that taught me I can do an awesome jump from really high up a ladder, sort of like a stunt person. If the stunt person were a middle-aged Scooby Doo. This was just after I’d discovered that my hornet spray does not, in fact, shoot 20 feet like the label says, but instead sends out a dribble that goes “pffst,” and extends maybe five feet, tops. The stuff they should warn you not to spray willy-nilly directly over your head during rapid descent from a ladder.

Though my hair has remained yellow jacket free, my house has not. They started appearing whenever it was cold out, these drugged, sluggish insects congregating on the inside of the patio door. I have transplanted virtually dozens of them to the other side of that door thanks to my expert catch-and-release weapons that include an empty plastic sorbet container and an ad for bargain denture replacement.

I’d originally assumed the yellow jackets had made a nest somewhere within the passionflowers that frame the back door in the warmer months, and somehow they were squeezing in behind the screen. But after the vines died back, I was surprised to find not even a small hive.

It wasn’t until the door remained shut that it became clear what this Christmas season had brought down my chimney.

So this year, I have rediscovered my fireplace. No question there is more than one kind of comfort in a nice, cozy fire! Sorry, critters, but this Christmas Eve, I need to be sure not a creature is stirring…up a hornet’s nest.

Wishing you a calm, peaceful Christmas. The cootie-free kind.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
~”Twas the Night Before Christmas,” by Clement Clarke Moore


10 comments:

  1. If this is fiction, it resembles a true story of mine. We kept seeing bees go in our back porch but never exit. Seems they had a nest on the walls. Oh what a fright. Up the chimney in smoke!

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    1. I had to reread several times to make sure you didn't say IN the walls. Urk. ON is bad enough! At least mine was a pretty easy fix once I realized where they had to be coming from.

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  2. Hari Om
    MERRY CHRISTMAS TAMMY!!! This was an entertaining read for the festive morn! Smacks of experience - and relief &*> Hope you have a wonderful day. Hugs,YAM xx

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    1. Thank you Yamini, and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, TOO!!! I'm touched you stopped in to read my not-terribly-festive-bee story on Christmas! Hugs back, Tammy

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  3. Tammy--Merry Christmas to you! I hope the fires keep the winged creatures away.

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    1. You too, Sioux! So far it's working, and I'm sort of glad to have an excuse!

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  4. Keep the home fire burning 'til the yellow jackets leave you alone.

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    1. That's the plan! So far it's more pleasant than bug spray. Especially bug spray in the hair.

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  5. We have found several yellow jackets in the house -- never occurred to me that they could be coming from the chimney -- eek! Thanks for opening my eyes to this possibility, and also for your unique take on a beloved Christmas story.

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  6. As long as the windows and doors haven't been left open in weeks or months, the chimney is about the least horrifying place they can be coming from. Truth be told, I'm a little grateful they reminded me to use my fireplace more often!

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