There was more news about the accident investigation when my little brother received a call last night. Again - can't mention details with the whole legal yada-yada, but I wouldn't call the news bad nor would I call it good, but it may be less worse - very specific, I know. It's not appropriate to celebrate, but I'd been saving the last of my p-day ice cream cake and cut a slice each for my little brother, my Mom, and me before scarfing mine down and jumping in the pool.
Within the next half hour, they'd joined me. I was backstroking near the lip of our fountain (at a haphazard angle but it still flows) when I felt my upper bicep get punctured and black shapes spiraling overhead. There turned out to be a nest of 10 or so wasps under the fountain lip. I dove underwater and two of those sleek black warriors were on the water's surface, unable to fly but apparently swimming.
War had been declared - me, my Mom, my brother (and the dog who likes to be included in everything I suppose) versus the pool wasps. The spray can of insect poison was depleted, so we were armed with a broom handle with no broom, a hose that wouldn't reach all the way to the nest, two nets disconnected from their poles, and a tiny kickboard.
I suppose that I took the war to the next level by handing out the items (the dog chewed on already mangled scuba fin and watched). I wondered if it was right to demolish the wasps for a single sting - perhaps we could've just let them be and avoided swimming in that area. However, my arm was starting to swell from the sting, and I had spared a housefly a little earlier (the fly had spiraled down when I got my cake out and crash landed in a bit of whipped cream separate from the remaining cake. I grabbed the squirming pest between my thumb and forefinger and considered popping it like a pimple before hesitating and throwing it outside). Plus, the wasps were armed warriors, not mere pests - after smacking one of the advance forces (the two wasps swimming on the pool's surface) with a kickboard, it's mangled body left the pool and lay on the asphalt. The only part of this wasp still moving was its stinger repeatedly popping in and out its black abdomen, a rapidly moving brown thorn that seemed to shout kill Kill KILL!
If you are a small child (why are you reading this blog!?) or the owner of small children, keep in mind that wasps are not like honeybees, natures' suicide bombers. Wasps do not die after stabbing you once - these warriors can sting you dozens of times in a matter of minutes if you don't have the sense to back away.
Anyway, our plan of attack was this: my Mom would stand back in the water and spray any helicopter wasps with the hose to keep them from dive bombing, my brother would be waiting with the flatter net to smack any low-flying ones into the water, I would dislodge the wasp nest into the water with the broom stick, and the dog would bark.
I aimed the stick like a pool cue and jabbed, but it only grazed the nest and agitated the wasps. We dove underwater and regrouped. I tried again with the stick with pretty much the same result. My little brother said it was his turn (I know - we're both in our 20's, but sometimes brothers still need to take turns). He had a better approach that involved angling the stick up and punctured the nest until it split and fell in the water.
Three wasps went down with their ship, but these canny creatures quickly climbed aboard the floating nest. Luckily I was there with the kickboard and screamed like a man as I smacked the life raft. We decided to gather our kills in the bigger net and put it at the bottom of the shallow end in case any warriors were still alive, possibly surviving off air bubbles in intact parts of the nest.
The rest of the war relied more on strategy, since the wasps had dispersed and came back to the original nesting area in ones or twos. The better approach here was for me to get out of the pool and watch the avenue between the fountain and the fence while the dog came and nuzzled me for moral support. My little brother and sometimes my Mom (who had started losing interest for some reason) would work as spotters. I would wait until returning warriors had found a perch and then try to smack them with my little yellow kickboard back into the water. If they hit the water, then my brother would guide them over to the net with the broom pole. This worked about a 1/3 of the time - the other 2/3 required jumping back into the pool for cover. My little brother and I took turns at this too of course (the Orthopedist said it was OK for him to put weight on his leg as long as there wasn't too much pain).
The sun was kissing the horizon when no more wasps returned. In the big net, I counted 8 fallen warriors - there is at least one vengeful wasp still out there somewhere, so watch your back. But that day, as a family, we were victorious. We had won.
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