Wednesday, August 30, 2006

wasp

it's as long as a crayon
black
oval head
tiny waist
long gold legs hang off its back
it's been in the house the past few days
morning afternoon
must sleep at night
hangs out next to desk in corner ceiling
next to painting
zooms in near my head
thru closed doors
window cracks

it sees me try to take its picture
i look at camera to hit button
for just one second
look up
there it is
every time
hovering buzzing the sound of 5 flies or more at once
right at my head face level
i turn & run & scramble backwards
scream "FUCK" and "GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER"
involuntarily and hope for its death
hope it is old & about to die
hope it flies into a moving vehicle
hope it stings me when i'm not looking
just get it over with

i take down the painting it hangs out around & there are 20-ish blobs of mud caked onto the side where the fucker's been building a nest
i took down the painting & look forward to tomorrow when it comes back & its project has been relocated to the kitchen
i got 2 flyswatters tonight in preparation and also have a strapping young man visiting tomorrow who can help me get rid of this pest if i need it
i painted something today while the terrorist held my office hostage with its endless swooping diving buzzing
as long as a crayon
black
oval head
tiny waist
long gold legs hang off its back


(just the other day parttown told me about tarantula hawks
and i see on the schmidt sting pain index that wasps hurt.)

here's the wasp nest hung up & reflected in jay archibald's watermelon orchids


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's wild!

Anonymous said...

a black and yellow mud dauber? http://crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth22.html

or maybe a giant ichneumon:
http://whatsthatbug.com/ichneumons.html

Anonymous said...

yes matt! a mud dauber! exactly what it is! the strapping young man, my friend dingo came over & told me it was probably a mud dauber and they don't sting! it is still swarming around all afternoon and making me generally intensely insane, and so i've just offered $ and/or lunch to anybody who gets rid of it tomorrow. i can't go on like this. i hope it's not a bunch of them and they're all attracted to my bright yellow house. it's daubing mud on all the other paintings in the room now, since i took its nest down.

Anonymous said...

Yup...okie girl would agree with Matt...mud dauber it is...your skin will be okay...you're sanity...

Anonymous said...

i just read on a site that they feed on black widows.

Anonymous said...

"...they feed on black widows."

zoinks- full circle!

is it dead yet?

Anonymous said...

full circle - no kidding! i'm not sure if it's dead or not yet, but it wasn't around this afternoon so it may be gone. aside from the coke bottle trap, i wiped the wall where it hangs out with vodka thinking it might lick that and get slow & i could swat it more easily. or maybe it would just die from the vodka or whatever. but i'm not sure what happened.