of wasps and men

(originally posted 8/9/2012)

My name is Larry.

I am an alcoholic.

Among many others thing. I wouldn’t say alcohol defines me per se. I have other ‘issues’ that might be considered more pressing.

My friends call me Tug on account of when I was 15 and was caught masturbating at a friends sleepover. I’ll try to explain what happened to the best of my ability but there are parts of the story I don’t remember, parts I don’t wish to remember, and parts that I flat out don’t believe myself but were told with a straight face by witnesses that I feel have very little reason to lie or even stretch the truth.

It all started with the damn wasps.

I had noticed the little bastards flying to and fro in my front yard and after closer investigation it was discovered that they had started in building a nest under the siding of my house. At first I found this somewhat amusing and spent many an hour sitting in a lawn chair on the cement walkway to my front door with a can of Raid in one hand and a cold beer in the other. I would wait until quite a number of them had gathered either waiting to fly in or waiting to fly out and I’d give the entrance a little squirt which would send the ones that were still in the air flying off all enraged and whatnot and those unfortunate ones that were standing on the soil would start flailing their little legs and wings around and eventually curl up and die. The nest seemed to provide an infinite supply of wasps because there would be stacks of dead wasps but sure enough more would come flying back from wherever they had been, doing Lord knows what. Unlike bees I never saw them actually bringing anything back to the nest like pollen or whatnot. They would just go out and do the things that apparently nature has asked wasps to do, like land on potato salad at picnics and sting small girls when they least expect it, and then head on back to their home. Which was my home.

Which got a little irritating.

After there were about 10 empty cans of Raid in my garbage, I couldn’t figure out whether cans like that are recyclable (which mattered very little as I don’t bother to separate my trash… it was more like a curiosity that a practical matter), I started to get a bit annoyed that these winged pricks were not getting the message I was sending (with the help of Tetramethrin and Peremethrin). My home was not big enough for all of us.

While it is true that I couldn’t really blame them for the damage to my siding that followed my attempt to throw enough dirt on their entrance to bury the problem once and for all it can be said that I wouldn’t have had to throw the dirt on them in the first place if they hadn’t been there… in the first place. If you follow that logic. The problem was my depth perception was a little askew due to the large quantity of shrooms I had ingested that morning and I kept slamming the shovel into the siding as my follow-through was a bit long. Had that been the end of it I think I would have considered a few dents a fair price to pay to get rid of the wasps but sure enough the next morning the little devils had just scooted a little further down my siding and resumed business as usual. Maybe they’re in league with ants or something and they taught ’em how to dig.

More beers. More Raid.

I woke up later that day and sure enough some of those little bastards had actually crawled inside the beer bottles surrounding my lawn chair and were getting liquored up on my dime. My hat had fallen off and my forehead had gotten a nasty sunburn on top of all it.

Obviously drug use is common during any war and, while I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, it does follow that given the stress I was feeling it is perfectly understandable that I might indulge myself when faced with such a wily opponent.

Ironically I had bought the acid and the M80s from the same guy. I had know him since college so he always turned me on to good deals he was offering and his “tune in, turn on, blow shit up” package was too good to ignore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hindsight. Easy to say now.

Here is what the police report didn’t tell you.

I had run out of Raid so the only thing I could find was Scrubbing Bubbles. This in and of itself is odd as I can never remember actually cleaning my bathtub. Now some of you brainiacs might ask “Tug, whatever did you need to spray the wasps for if you were going to blow them up?” A fair question. But the reality was that I couldn’t just blow them up because where they lived was really part of where I lived. I was just planning on scaring them and showing them I meant business.

At least I think that’s what I was thinking. I had taken a lot of acid just before I started putting this plan into operation, all of it actually, so I’m a little fuzzy on the details.

The Scrubbing Bubbles was just to kill enough of them so I could get close and place the explosive devices around their lair. I will share with you a little bit of information I didn’t know at the time but know now; Scrubbing Bubbles doesn’t kill wasps.

In fact, it makes them angry. Foamy and angry.

It’s hard to say how much acid is too much but as a rule of thumb all of it is typically too much.

I was too far along with the plan to quit so I continued to place the M80s in strategic locations in and around the siding, the wasps be damned. I started to feel this tingly sensation running up my arms that I put down to excitement and started to light the fuses.

They all started to hiss and I panicked, fearing I was going to be caught in the blast. How stupid was I? Lighting M80s in that condition?

I ran.

And ran. Fear overwhelming me. I ran until my lungs burned. I ran until I forgot why I was running. I ran until I was abruptly caught in an enormous spider’s web. It grabbed me and held me paralyzed. Terror gripped me. I fought and screamed but only made things worse. I became entangled from my Sativas to the top of my mullet.

My screams alerted my neighbors.

My neighbors called the police.

The police explained they were already on their way as a nearby house was on fire.

My house.

Fucking M80s tore of the side of my house and set things ablaze pretty nicely. How many M80s are too many? Again, all of them is about a good a place to start as any. Although my neighbors were nice enough to cut me out of their volleyball net they did ask that I replace it.

I would have said that I had bigger fish to fry but that didn’t seem to capture the magnitude of the situation. I told them I had bigger kettles of fish to fry. That seemed more appropriate.

I find it funny that the police blotter also forgot to mention my face and arms had been stung over 70 times. I guess the image of me hanging in a net with swollen hands and a grotesque puffy face goes against their belief that there could be a victim in a victimless crime.

The firemen, and subsequently the police, found enough contraband in my house to charge me with a variety of crimes.

Victimless indeed!

So that’s why I’m here at AA. If you take away Darryl’s barbeque, I’ve been sober going on a week now. My hands and face are all healed up now but let me tell you right now, memories are like scars on your brain. If I would have had insurance I’m sure I would have moved and left this all behind me. Left what remains of my house to the wasps.

But I can’t so I didn’t.

So I’m a week sober now and me and the wasps get along best we can.

My name is Larry… but you guys can call me Tug.