NOT funny

It has been said that all good things must come to an end. And, so ends my days of never being stung by a bee. I've been through a plethora of emotions today post-wasp-sting. Confusion, pain, hurt feelings, anger, disgust, squeamish...notice a theme? NONE OF THEM ARE GOOD! I did nothing to those uncompassionate little pests, and they still got me.

I'm sure you're dying to hear the story - so, I'll go ahead and indulge you this once. (Okay, okay, so I like drumming up pity for myself sometimes.)

The fall weather has been just gorgeous lately, so we've been doing a lot of yard work, trying to tame the forest that surrounds us. Today was nice...a little humid because of the recent rain...but nice. The only problem we were having were with the blood-sucking mosquitoes that literally swarmed around us as we were working. We kept the bug-spray handy and reapplied as we felt necessary. Carson came out to join us after nap-time, so I started innocently making my way over to the bug spray to give him a little layer of protection. I was walking through the leaves, kicking them a bit so I could enjoy that wonderful sound they make, and scarcely noticed the 5 or 6 wasps swarming around a little patch at my feet. I've never really been scared of bees or wasps because they've never hurt me. I felt we had a little unspoken bond: I leave them alone, and they leave me alone. So I didn't mind them swarming around, and I kept kicking my way over to the bug spray. Seconds later, I felt a wasp hitting the palm of my left hand. I quickly swatted it away and almost immediately felt one in my right hand. I swatted that one away, too, and heard one buzzing right by my ear. I waved him away, but he still buzzed in my ear. I tried waving him away again, but he was persistent on staying right there by my ear. At this point, I realized that he was angry, so I started to run away - swatting and screaming the whole way. The wasp kept with my ear and suddenly darted in front of me, latched onto my lip and stung me! THE NERVE! My left eye started watering like crazy, and I kept running, screaming, and swatting...but that blasted wasp wouldn't leave me alone. So, I ran into the house, through the hall and into the bathroom so I could at least have a mirror as my ally. I saw the bugger still swarming around my head, but got to a point where I could slip out of the door and slam it behind me - locking the fiend inside. It didn't take long before my lip looked like this:

And the pain had traveled up through my upper lip, down my gums, and into three of my teeth! My heroic husband took charge and went outside with some bug spray to kill the rest of them while I watched from behind the safety of a big glass window, holding ice to my lip. It's been over 9 hours now and, just in case you're wondering, it still hurts!
My high school mascot is a wasp...and up until now I've always kind of sneered at that. But now, NOW I see the wisdom behind picking such a ferocious creature. A panther might be scary if you happened to see one face to face - but who is ever going to really see one? A wasp is a much more realistic fear to have...everyone runs from a wasp, and looks like a crazyman while doing so. And let me tell you, they can be PainFull! So, from now on, I will never look at my high school mascot as inferior. They are mean, clever, persistent and able to inflict pain in any creature.

But why, oh why, did it have to inflict pain on my LIP?