all wasps are bastards!

Strange goings on were a foot last night in chez Matt’s last night and I’m pretty damned sure we have had a ghost wasp or two living in our kitchen. Last Sunday, Lisa and I had a run in with the wasp that resides in our kitchen: it went for me whilst I was taking the hot Yorkshire pudding tray from the oven in preparation for adding the batter. I’m sure you will all appreciate that this is a extremely delicate operation trying not to spill the hot oil- especially if your kitchen is the size of ours-shoe box size. Anyway, this black and yellow son-of-a-bitch buzzed around me for a bit, then taunted us by returning to its lair, which we discovered to be a small hole on the top of our fridge. After inspecting this hole with a rolled up copy of Lisa’s Take a Break magazine, the bugger had disappeared, presumably into wasp city which must be located in the ‘innards’ of the fridge freezer and we hadn’t heard from it since. That was until last night. Whilst making myself a cuppa’ it darted out into the landing light and was doing that weird throbbing thing that wasps do. At this juncture I should note that I am not scared of wasps particularly, however I am not especially fond of them either. I also as a general rule don’t like killing things and the moths and spiders that somehow feel the necessity to habit our abode are usually well treated by myself and released back to the ‘wild’ i.e. lobbed out of the window. Wasps though are the general exception to this rule. Firstly because Mr. MacNally- a Primary School Teacher of mine- killed one in class and assured us that God didn’t mind us killing wasps and I have always held this disclaimer in the highest regards. Also my mother always warned me in my childhood, that when it’s getting cold Wasps are angry and therefore more likely to attack, again I have trusted this information, plus it is scientifically proven that all wasps are bastards! So in November, in the coldest flat in England and living in the fridge this must be the mother of wasps. I then spent the next 20 minutes forming a plot to kill it. This idea was to basically hit it as hard as I could with a newspaper. It took me 15 minutes to pluck up the courage attempt a strike, which I did like a little girl and proceeded to run down the stairs in case I missed and it wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Upon my return to the battle ground the wasp had gone. I wasn’t sure if it was alive and waiting for me, so I proceeded with caution. I assumed, after looking around for its corpse; that perhaps it was in the newspaper that I courageously bashed it with. So I bravely stood on the newspaper for about ten minutes to ensure that should it be there it was definitely a gonner. Upon cowardly checking said newspaper I was alarmed to see there was nothing. It was then that I saw it on the kitchen lampshade looking at me. At this point I felt as though I should make an attempt to remove it in a more humane manner and fetched a glass and piece of card. Alas, our lampshade in the kitchen in made of paper and spherical so this was impossible. After ten minutes of wrestling with my guilty conscious, I once again took a swipe for it and missed by millimetres, yet the wasp remained where it was. This was surely an indication it wasn’t in good shape. Ha! Advantage Matt. I then took a second swing for it and then again ran out of the kitchen in to the spare room squealing like a pig. Upon inspection of the kitchen it had disappeared an after a lengthy investigation I decided to retreat to the front room shutting all the doors in the process. Lisa was less than impressed and wanted to see it’s body, I told her that I was spent and proceeded to cower on the sofa. After several hours passed, I decided to put the kettle on. Whilst filling the kettle nervously, I saw the poor fallen creature lying in the washing up bowl, floating amongst the suds of the pan that I had lazily left there to soak. I spooned its brave little body out and after examining it noticed that I must have done some damage to its tail (spilled guts gave it away) so I put it into the bin, before celebrating the fact it was no more. Now this is the really weird part. On route to bed, I decided to get a glass of water when I noticed floating in the other pan in the sink a dead wasp! This freaked me out bigstyle and I spent the next ten minutes going through the bin looking for the ex-wasp’s carcass but to no avail. Upon inspecting the second body there was no spillage of guts so it must have been a different wasp. Lisa’s reaction was to ask me repeatedly if I definitely put it in the bin, which of course I did. I took the wasp from its watery grave and threw it out of the window as a precautionary measure. Lesson learned the hard way. Mr MacNally you’re going to hell.