dale bridges

Here is what happens during the summer at my apartment: Since the bug-infested halfway house that I live in does not have air conditioning, I have to keep my window open at all times or I will literally cook from the inside out like some sort of Christmas goose or turkey or some other type of bird that is served on Jesus’ birthday.

Of course, there is a wasp’s nest somewhere in the tree outside my window. That’s just how things work in my life. I’m certain that if I was suddenly given a room at Buckingham Palace, there would be a wasp’s nest outside the window and the ghost of Henry VII in the closet. (By the way, why don’t we ever hear anything about King Henry VII? It’s always Henry VIII this and Henry VIII that.)

Wasps are stupid, okay. They are abnormally dumb. If you are one of those people who thinks nature is beautiful and all of the creatures on this magical planet are miraculous and wonderful, I am going to have to disagree with you. Wasps are not wonderful. Wasps are scary and dumb and they kind of look like angry demon skeleton-type alien things or something (i.e. not wonderful).

(Note: I am referring to wasps the insects, not W.A.S.P. the American hair metal band that emerged out of Los Angeles in 1982, and not WASP the common abbreviation for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Just wanted to make that clear.)

They fly in through my window because they are morons and then they go straight for the light on the ceiling that is sort of shaped like a flower because, once again, they are morons. They land on the light bulb, making a loud buzzing sound, and then they drop onto the couch cushion beside me. This happens at least five or six times a day. I was killing them for a while, but I started feeling bad about doing that, so now I just keep a newspaper in that spot and whenever a wasp gets zapped by my flower-light and falls down, it lands on the newspaper and I scoop it up and throw it out the open window. After which, I am fairly certain that the wasp recovers from his experience with electricity, flies back up through my window, and heads straight for my goddamn light again.

It’s quite possible that that there is, in fact, no wasp’s nest outside my apartment at all, and instead, it’s a solitary insect that thinks we are playing some sort of demented game.

If that’s the case, I think the wasp is winning.