A couple of years ago I had to replace a light fixture in our laundry room because the pull-string switch broke. It’s fun doing small electric repairs in my house, because it’s very old and all the wiring in it looks like it was installed by George Washington. The wires are covered in white cloth, probably woven by Betsy Ross, and have lots of cobwebs on them. It’s like a little history lesson every time I take something apart to look inside. As a side note nothing to do with bees or electricity, when my partner and I went to the Betsy Ross Historical Home in Philadelphia, we learned that George Washington paid Betsy Ross the modern day equivalent of $2,500 ($77.50 George Washington money) to make him a bedspread in 1774. She sewed in between rounds of melting lead for making bullets, her side hustle in the days of the Revolutionary War.
In order to replace the light socket, I had to first turn off the electricity. I went down to the box and pulled it open to discover a handful of paper wasps on their nest staring at me like I’d just walked into the wrong bathroom.
I’m not exactly SCARED of bees, but I am allergic to them. It’s not a lethal allergy, I just swell like an itchy, red, inflamed Pillsbury bun, which sounds disgusting and it is. One time my sixth graders and I walked over a yellow jacket nest and yellow jackets came pouring out and we ran, screaming up the street. But a few of my kids had gotten caught on the other side of the nest and I had to save them so I made everyone stop running once we were out of the danger zone and started to head back. A man slammed out the front door of his house yelling “what’s happening!?” He had what looked like a magic wand in his hand and I felt a fleeting moment of relief. I pointed and shouted “bees!” and waited for him to avada kedavra them, but he just yelled “I’m deathly allergic to bees!” And then I realized the thing in his hand wasn’t a wand but an epi pen. I ran away to save my kids so I didn’t get to ask, but I always wondered why in the hell he would run OUTSIDE, knowing he’s deathly allergic to bees, with his epi pen in hand, during what most certainly would have been obvious to any sane person as a bee attack, when all he had to do to stay alive was not open the door. I only got stung twice that day, once on the head and once on my left muffin top. That’s where I would’ve stung me too.
The first time I realized that I was allergic to bees was when I stepped on a bumble in my grandmother’s front lawn. It stung me between my little toe and my ring toe. It wasn’t that big of a deal, my grandmother just chewed up some tobacco leaf and put it on there with a band aid over it. But that night it swelled up into an elephantitic pink blob with toenails, which sounds disgusting and it was. I had to attend Mt. Zion Baptist Church Sunday School with only one patent leather Mary Jane and one naked mutant blob foot.
So I contemplated these paper wasps for a while, and they contemplated me. After a few minutes they went back to futzing with their larvae and tried to pretend I wasn’t there. Their nest was about one inch away from the cut off switch. It would appear to them, I was sure, like I was reaching right for them and they would surely come for me. I’ve always had a soft spot for insects, quite possibly the most misunderstood animals in the kingdom, and I didn’t want to kill them, especially since they were trying so hard to not jump off their babies and attack me. Also, I learned more recently that paper wasps are beneficial to yards because they pollinate and eat insects that can destroy plants. So I went back inside and put on three layers of thick clothing, cinched my hoodie to leave an opening about the size of a quarter, put on two pairs of gardening gloves and an old apiary hood we had in the basement (we really do have an old apiary hood in the basement and I really did put it on) and went back out to turn off the electricity, looking like a homeless astronaut. I opened the box and the wasps looked at me again, only now they were looking at me with less surprise and more concern for my mental well-being.
It took me forty-five minutes to get up the nerve to turn off the switch. I just stood there in the sun, sweating, reaching my hand up and dropping it away at the last second. My partner called out the back door to tell me the sun was going to go down soon and it would be hard to replace the fixture in the dark. I knew the jig was up. I had to just do it. The bees had now pretty much accepted me. They still turned their little heads each time I started to reach, but I think they had maybe come to like me just a little. So I did it. I reached up, grabbed that switch, pulled it as hard as I could, and RAN, peeing my pants just a tiny bit on the exit. That’s just something that happens to women in my family, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.
It took me about ten minutes to replace the fixture. Turning the power back on was much easier because of the angle. I got my hood back on, grabbed an eight foot tiki torch, marched over there to that electric box and opened it up. The bees barely even acknowledged me this time. They were so over it. I used the tiki torch to push the switch back up from a safe distance and all was well. Until recently…
TO BE CONTINUED
scrappy haps 