After four weeks of watching paint dry, I mean, the wasps cling to the wall of my L.A. condo, unmoving, hibernating, mating, whatever, I made the call to our exterminator to remove the offending squatters. Now, our building has some sort of coverage with them, since we have an ongoing monthly service, where they will come inside and spray at no cost if we find things like silverfish, spiders, etc. And that’s right…wasps aren’t covered.
“You know,” the exterminator drawled to me over the phone, “they’re probably just dying, you could just smack them with a broom and save yourself some money.”
Yeah, and I could probably do the same thing to a cop after a high speed chase that resulted in my running out of gas and slamming into a pole after accumulating 20 police units and a couple of helicopters: just get out of my car and smack him with a broom. WAS HE KIDDING????
Why should I trust some guy who isn’t there to see these menacing insects positioned over me in my living room, taunting me, probably making fun of my eating habits in front of the television (Netflix, anyone?) What about all those societal influences that do nothing but teach us that wasps are mean and stinging and nasty and swarming and stinging and never NEVER NEVER swat at them? What the hell was wrong with this guy? He was clearly high on bug spray vapors and stung to the point of immunity, because I didn’t care if it cost $95.00 for him to come over with his own broom. I just wanted somebody else to take the risk of getting stung while I hid in the bathroom. I wanted a guarantee that in February when those little suckers woke up from their dreams, they wouldn’t be in my house ready to party.
So this guy comes over with a Webster in his hand (you know that thing with a long pole and a spherical fluff of bristles on the end that is used to get spider webs out of corners, hence the name Webster?) and a white can of stuff hanging from his holster. I will call him Pedro, at the risk of racial profiling, but also for expediency. Pedro expands the purple dandelion of the Webster and reaches up the 20 or so feet to the window where Stuart and Stan (the Sting brothers) are hanging out.
Pedro tries to mush them with no success, but they fall gently from the wall into the lair of the mighty Webster. As he lowers the end of the Webster, the wasps seem to slowly flounder in and around the bristles as if to say, “Oh I’m soooo sleepy, I just can’t be bothered with all this”, and I run over there (at this point, I figure if they were going to attack, it would have happened already) and open the sliding glass door. Pedro moves the Webster outside where Stuart slips out of it, hits the balcony floor, and rolls off the edge, falling to his death for all I know. It’s like Pedro is the Pied Piper of wasps. Meanwhile, Stan lazily falls into the door track where Pedro sprays the crap out of him. Ninety-five dollars later, Pedro sends me out of the house and comes out 5 minutes later having fogged the 2nd level of my condo and tells me not to return for 4 hours.
Tune in next episode entitled ‘Bug Year’, when we learn about the trials and tribulations of fumigating your abode with a tent and some termite spray. Scenes will be shot sometime in January with post production and a release date to follow, writer’s strike be damned.
Oh yeah, did I mention we have termites?
I am finishing a children’s cd and would like to use the picture of your bee cartoon somewhere on the front or back cover. It is really cute.
I am an elementary music teacher.
This is to benefit abused chidren