The Irwins vs. The Wasp-Monsters, Part 1

I am not very good at dealing with spiders, snakes, bees, creepy crawly things...... to save myself from continuing this very long list, basically anything that can bite/sting/poison me and/or that scurries/flies/darts.


I grew up in the Canadian rockies. We did not have a wide variety of spiders and nasty flying things. We have cougars and bears. I'm okay with cougars and bears - they don't sneak into your house through the crack in the door and crawl up your leg during dinner. 


Then I moved to Texas. Bug-Central. Lucky  me.


When I moved into our first house together in May, it had been vacant for a few months. I didn't think about the repercussions of this fact until the night I pulled a wine glass out of the cabinet with a live brown recluse sprawled out inside. After finding six more in a week or so, we invested in a heavy-duty pesticide called "Demon WP". I'm pretty sure that stuff knocked out everything living on our property besides us and the dog. Good stuff. 


We thought that the disappearance of bugs meant they'd finally realized who was boss and vacated our property. Then last week I noticed a wasp-like hornet dirt dobber thingy (not sure what it was, but it DEFINITELY had a stinger and wings...) flying around the living room. My stealthy husband killed it skillfully with one slap. 


The next day we found two more in half an hour. We had no idea where they were coming from, but Jeremy assured me that there are usually only three or four to a nest, so no matter where this nest was we'd pretty much obliterated all it's inhabitants already. 


Then we found six more over the next few days. Luckily Jeremy was home for all of them and killed them before I had a chance to shriek girlishly for too long.


Last night I came home late from work, caught up in traffic, to hurriedly prepare dinner before our friends came over. Jeremy was still at work. About halfway into breading the chicken, I heard the familiar tink tink tink of a wasp-monster flying up against the ceiling light in the quiet room. 


I moved silently for my phone and called Jer. He was half an hour from home. I could wait half an hour, right? I continued breading chicken while constantly looking over my shoulder in fear, making sure I could see the wasp-monster and that it was across the room from me. Any time it got a little too close to my work space I would fly to the other side of the room, flinging butter and bread crumbs from my hands everywhere. I couldn't wait half an hour.


Problem - I was far too chicken to kill it like Jeremy did. Only a thin paper towel between my hand and the wasp-monster? Psssh, ludicrous. 


Solution - wooden spoon. 


Problem - putting a hole in the wall of the rent house trying to kill the wasp-monster. 


Solution - wrapping the spoon with a kitchen towel. Result? Ultimate monster-killing weapon. 


I stalked the thing across the room until it landed on the wall. I swung and hit it. It flapping around injured and ANGRY. Crap. 


Landed again. Smacked again. Knocked it onto the ground - woo hoo!! I couldn't let it get up again, so I went to town hacking the monster into the floor with the spoon for quite some time while the poor dog watched my massacre in horror. 


So now 10 wasp-monsters and counting have found themselves into the Irwin abode. There is no moral to this story yet.... we have yet to figure out where they're coming from.


But rest assured, Part 2 is coming.....