Galvanized Bees

I hesitate to write this because it really lets the people who read this know how clueless I can be. That said, it also lets them know I'm capable of laughing at myself and have done so quite a bit since this happened.

First, let me say that I really, really hate spiders and bees. Snakes I can deal with but spiders and bees are to be avoided at all costs. Spiders are sneaky little insects that drink blood. Why they're worse than mosquitoes I will never understand but they are. Maybe it's because mosquitoes come right at you. Spiders don't. Bees on the other hand come right at you but they bring all their relatives and friends too. The person who came up with the idea of Africanizing bees should be shot. Anyway, you know my fears and that sets the stage for this story.

As some of you know I have been working on a deck at my home. It's a large deck and my brother-in-law and I have been working on it for the past few weeks. We break around noon because here in Tennessee it's been horribly hot and working in the sun past noontime just isn't conducive to doing a good job. It also makes your judgment a little bit suspect as you'll see in a moment.

It was coming on to noon, we've been working on this deck for about 5 hours and the sun was beating down. I was screwing in the deck planking and my brother-in-law was cutting the boards to length and pulling them in tight against the other boards already in place. As I looked down in order to place another screw into the board we were attaching to the deck I saw the gray head of a bee work its way between my foot and the tongue of the sneaker I was wearing on my right foot.

These were new sneakers and the tongue was one of those big puffy kind not the flat cloth kind many sneakers have. As I moved my foot to put the drill down I could feel the bee squirming around on the top of my foot! I knew I was moments away from a sting so I threw down my drill and pounded the little sucker hard by hitting the tongue of my sneaker. It stung me! Hard! Irritated I pounded the sucker really hard again and it stung me again! Now I was concerned because I know the only kind of bee that can sting more than once is a queen bee.

That's obviously what I had in my sneaker! I hit it hard and quickly another 5 or 6 times trying to kill it and each time I did it stung me again. Realizing I wasn't killing it I quickly unlaced my sneaker and pulled it off to stomp on the bee with my other foot. That's when the gray, galvanized screw that had fallen off my drill and between the tongue of my sneaker and my foot fell out onto the deck.

My brother-in-law called it quits for the day. Not because of the heat, even though it was terribly hot and not because of the danger from bees, there were plenty around, but because he could not work any longer because he was laughing so hard. I really felt foolish and laughed too. What else could I do? This was 5 days ago and, as I write this and look at the top of my right foot, the impression of the screw is still plainly visible.

The moral of this story? Quit working in the sun and heat early. I feel fortunate I was not using a nail gun.

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