Being an adult definitely has some perks, but it also has some significant drawbacks. One of those being the need to rid my house of any uninvited six or eight-legged visitors who have no intention of leaving on their own accord. If there is anyone around who I deem to be "more adult" than I am, it automatically becomes their job to take care of the problem. One of the downsides to being a teacher is the fact that, despite some of my students being older than I am, I am the "most adult" person in the room and I am responsible for removing the threat.
At home, on the other hand, the intruders will only be taken care of if I am alone and know that nobody else will be there for at least a couple of days. Unfortunately for all parties involved, this is usually the case, and I am forced to take matters into my own hands and instead of cowardly hiding and yelling for assistance, I must attack the problem head on.
This was the case a couple of months ago, when I was awakened by a loud buzzing sound in my bedroom. To fully comprehend the situation, there are a few things you need to know about my house. I live on the top floor of the building in an apartment with sloping ceilings. Because of this, the main windows are at floor level, so to let in more light, the apartment is equipped with several skylights that can be opened as to allow fresh air in. Each skylight also has a sun shade that can be rolled up or extended. The biggest drawback to the skylights is that, despite being closed, flying insects tend to think that they are an escape route and are not intelligent enough to determine that continuously smashing themselves against the glass will accomplish nothing except for an untimely death. Being that the skylights are just high enough that I have to stand on a chair to open them fully, if the animal in question is a fly, I leave it to its own devices because trying to coax a small flying animal out of the relatively narrow opening without falling off the chair is a difficult feat. In fact, my first and only attempt at this resulted in my accidentally throwing a piece of cardboard on my roof and being unable to retrieve it. If it is a bee, I will usually open one of the lower windows in the hopes that it will fly downwards and exit my house, mostly as an act of self preservation because I don't want to get stung.
Now, back to the day in question. It was a Sunday morning and my roommate was out of town. I slept in that day and woke up with the sun shining through the skylight at about 10:00am. Before fully opening my eyes, I heard a loud buzzing coming from the area near the skylight. Not yet being fully conscious, I was relatively unconcerned, assuming, due to the sound, that it was just a large fly. Upon opening my eyes, I discovered that it was not a fly, but the largest wasp I had ever seen. I am not exaggerating when I say that. It was about an inch and a half long and about the same size around as my little finger. Doing what any sane person would do in this situation, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my phone, and locked myself in the bathroom to protect myself from the beast and plan my next move.
I spent over an hour locked in the bathroom researching what the beast was and the best methods for dealing with it while it flew back and forth outside, surely waiting for the perfect moment to launch its attack. In this hour, I discovered that my foe was an Asian wasp. While researching, one site told me that the best method for getting rid of this type of creature was to run away screaming and wait for it to leave or die on its own or for someone to kill it and rescue me. I had that method down pat. Other, slightly more useful, methods included using shoes, newspapers, or hairspray to take care of it. Unfortunately for me, all three of these methods would force me to be in very close contact with the animal, which was not something I wanted to risk. Finally I came upon a tactic that I felt would be the best, given the situation and my abilities. Window cleaner would allow me to attack from a relatively safe distance without putting myself into harm's way.
Armed with this knowledge, I opened the bathroom door, and ran as fast as I could to the kitchen to get my weapon. Knowing what the effects of the window cleaner were, I grabbed the bottle and a glass, which would be used to trap the intruder as it fell to the floor. Hesitantly, I walked back to my bedroom, hoping that I would be able to accomplish this difficult feat without causing too much to damage to either myself or my house. I quietly opened the bedroom door and walked slowly towards the skylight, hoping to sneak up on the intruder and catch it by surprise. As I approached the skylight, the intruder appeared out of nowhere and flew at me, like a lightning bolt. I screamed, turned around, and high-tailed it out of the room and shut the door. After spending several minutes in the hallway regaining my composure, I decided to try again. With the bottle of window cleaner in one hand and the glass in the other I re-entered the room. The beast was ready this time and, again, as I approached its lair, it charged at me and I ran screaming to the safety of the hallway. This process continued for a total of 40 minutes.
Finally, after wasting almost two hours of my life, I know it was time to take care of the beast once and for all. This time as I closed in on the skylight, nothing happened. Surprised by the lack of charging on the part of my enemy, I inched closer to the skylight. When I was directly under it, I looked for signs of the wasp, but there was no trace of it. Praying that it hadn't escaped to some other part of the house, I decided to give a quick spray with the bottle of window cleaner to see if I could find it. I directed the bottle at the skylight and sprayed and heard the familiar terrifying buzzing. The beast had crawled inside of the rolled up window shade and I was going to force it out, whether it wanted wanted to come out or not. After quite a few sprays, the wasp poked its head out and I continued with my attack. It fully emerged and quickly fell to the ground where I trapped it with the glass. Not wanting it to escape from its prison, I set a grammar book on top of the glass, so that if it were strong enough to knock the glass over, it would be crushed by the weight of the Basque language. I didn't want to see it suffer, so I was happy to see that it perished in only a matter of minutes. However, knowing that wasps have good eyesight and can identify their attackers, I left it in its glass prison for a few days to make sure that it was really dead before disposing of the body.
Fast forward a few months to another lazy morning. On that day, when I was home alone, I was again awakened by a loud buzzing coming from the skylight. This time, I knew just what to do and walked to the kitchen to arm myself. This time, I was able to vanquish the beast in only a matter of minutes. I sent a picture to my roommate to show him that I had been able to take care of an intruder without any help. When he returned from work, I made him dispose of the body, because I didn't want to have to do it and, upon seeing the animal up close and personal he said, "It looked much smaller in the picture." "I know," I replied, "And this one was even smaller than the last one."
WORD OF THE DAY
English: wasp
Spanish: la avispa
Basque: liztorra
P.D. Bonus points if you get the musical reference I used for the title.
