The other morning, the first warm and sunny one in ages, when I opened the back door to let the dogs out, I came nose to nose with four huge hornets on the inside of the screen door. No kidding, one of them was so big, it must have been on steroids ever since it was in its larva stage.
I immediately slammed the inner door shut, nearly lopping off the nose on one of my dogs in the process.
I’ve been terrified of hornets and basically anything that possesses a stinger and wings for most of my life. So had I opened the door and seen the face of Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger staring in at me, I couldn’t have been more frightened.
Luckily, my house has two back doors, so I led the dogs to the other one, even though it’s not their usual “let’s go out” door.
But when I opened it, five hornets greeted me. I didn’t know whether the previous four were stalking me and had brought one of their buddies along with them, or if this was a totally different gang. Once again I slammed the door and then clasped my chest. My heart felt as if it were performing a bongo solo.
By then, my dogs were staring at me as if to say, “Forget about letting us out! We’re going to go pee on the carpet! It’s safer than getting our heads slammed in a door!”
My dilemma was how to go about making both back doors hornet-free. I felt panicky, like a hostage in my own house. How, I wondered, had those invaders even managed to get on the inside of the screen doors? Wasn’t the whole purpose of a screen door to keep pests out?
Inspecting the screens for holes, however, was out of the question. I mean, how was I going to check anything while those winged assassins were sitting on it? Short of renting a beekeeper’s outfit, there was no way I was going to open either of those doors again…at least not until after the next snowfall.
All of my life, my first reaction whenever I saw a bee or hornet flying near me was to run. I swear I could complete the Boston marathon in record time if a few hornets were flying behind me. But stuck in my house, there was nowhere to run if the hornets flew inside…other than out of the front door, where I felt certain there probably would be another dozen or so of them waiting to dive-bomb me. So, I reasoned, as long as I stayed inside and didn’t open any doors, I would be safe.
Meanwhile, my dogs were whining and crossing their legs.
If it hadn’t been for their urgent need to go out and my fear of having to answer to the SPCA, I’d have barricaded myself indoors indefinitely. But I knew I had to at least try to be brave for the sake of my dogs…and their bladders.
I didn’t have any bug spray, but I’d recently read that in a pinch, hairspray, especially “extra hold” would work if sprayed directly on any flying insect because it weighed down their wings and stuck them together (or something like that). I hadn’t used hairspray in years, but I thought I might still have a can of it lying around somewhere, from back in the days when “beehive” hairstyles were popular.
How ironic.
Armed with a flyswatter and a can of hairspray, I locked the dogs in the laundry room for their own safety. Then I crept toward the first door. My hand was shaking when I clasped the handle because I had no idea what I'd find on the other side. Had more hornets joined the original ones – a family reunion perhaps? Would a swarm of them engulf my entire head and turn my face into a mass of disfiguring lumps like the ones in those corny killer-bees horror movies?
Slowly I creaked open the door a crack and peeked out. Only two hornets were on the inside of the screen door. I probably should have been relieved, but due to my phobia, two hornets were two too many.
I took a deep breath, flung open the living-room door and unleashed a blast of hairspray at both of my enemies on the screen door. They remained sitting there. So I raised the flyswatter to deliver what I hoped would be a fatal blow. When I did, part of the screen flapped outward into the breeze and both hornets flew away.
It was at that point I realized the screen had come detached from the bottom and the right side of the door…before I’d even touched it. And not only was it detached, there also was a jagged tear in it. How and when, I wondered, had the screen met with so much destruction?
Two suspects immediately came to mind, and they already were locked up…in the laundry room. When I checked the other back door, that screen also had similar tears in it. I wasn’t surprised.
There was only one immediate solution to the problem…
Duct tape. My go-to hero for most of my emergency needs.
I became a crazed madwoman at that point – duct-taping every torn area on both screen doors. Neatness didn’t matter to me, speed did, because I had no clue when the hornets might return to seek vengeance for the hairspray incident, even if they had to walk.
When my duct tape started to run low, I also used some leftover pieces of painter’s tape in shades of blue and green for added protection. As a result, the doors ended up looking like…well, let’s just say House Beautiful magazine won’t be coming around to take photos of my place anytime soon.
I’m pleased to say I haven’t had a hornet on either door since. But I did notice the tape already is beginning to sag a bit, thanks to some recent damp weather.
So it's time to go buy a new roll…about the size of a monster-truck tire. After all, it never hurts to
be prepared.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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