Monthly Archives: December 2014

The common wasp. Not my favourite creature

I’m not terribly fond of wasps. Horrible, aggressive little blighters. I was recently reading a post by Steve Morris about how do wasps get into your house. He reckons they teleport in and out. I’m inclined to go along with that because they just suddenly appear and just as quickly disappear again, How else can they do that. I blame the Vulcans. You can find Steve at blogbloggerbloggest. Good stuff.

I’ve been stung twice by wasps and both times it happened I got into trouble.

The first time was a good time ago. I was an Inbetweener aged about 17. One summer my best friend, Omar and I had slung our surf kayaks on the roof rack of his Morris Traveller and gone down to west Wales looking for big waves and girls.

A surf kayaker. Lots of fun

One morning I clambered out of my tent and looked around. It was a beautiful sunny day and the surf looked pretty good. I decided to put my boots on, take a stroll up to the headland, have breakfast, chill out and then go and catch some waves. So I pulled on my boots and as I finished double knotting the laces, ZAP, ZAP, ZAP! Something was stinging my foot. To paraphrase Woody in  Toy Story There was a wasp in my boot! Panic! My laces were double knotted, it would take ages to undo them and in the meantime the wasp continued to sting. I was leaping about, my hair flying all over the place and I was shouting and hollering. I decided to stamp on my foot to kill the bugger. So I started stamping away. Other people on the campsite were climbing out of their tents to see what the commotion was all about. I must have looked like some kind of whirling Dervish! Eventually, the stinging stopped so I sat down to take off my boot and survey the damage. As my boot came off, two things happened. First, the bloody wasp flew out of my boot completely unharmed and second, a big hand grabbed my shoulder and a voice said,

“Hello, hello hello. What’s going on here then boyo?”

It was the local plod who had decided to take a look at these hippy surfers and had seen me doing a war dance. I tried to explain what had happened but to my dismay he said,

“Look you boyo. I am arresting you for suspicion of being under the influence of mind altering narcotics and suspicion of being in possession of mind altering narcotics. Anything you say…….etc etc Tidy.”

WTF! I tried to protest my innocence but I wasn’t exactly coherent, my foot hurt and the evidence had flown off. I showed him my foot and explained that I’d been stung several times by a wasp.

“That’s what they all say boyo. You’re nicked. Tidy.”

“What they all say?” I thought. “Are they plagued by wasps round here?”

“I’m taking you to the police station so the police doctor can carry out an examination. I will also be carrying out a cavity search boyo.”

WTF! I remember thinking to myself (and remember I was only 17),

“Cavity search? What have my teeth got to do with this? Who is this bloke? Is he some kind of amateur dentist? It’s my foot he needs to be looking at not checking my oral hygiene.”

Upshot of all this was that I was cuffed and put in the back of the coppers panda car and driven miles to the local nick which turned out to be the house where he lived with a couple of rooms converted into cells. A large elderly bloke  with the reddest nose I’d ever seen was waiting for us. Turns out he was the local GP who moonlighted as the police doctor and by the look of him was also the local coroner, mortician, funeral director, Baptist minister and publican. He plainly had the place all sewn up.

Nothing wrong with my teeth. Nice and clean and sparkly. These aren’t mine by the way. I have my own.

I was taken into a room where the doc examined my foot for a few minutes. Then he turned to the policeman and started to clear his throat for about five minutes. Then the copper started clearing his throat.

“Crikey!” I thought. “I hope that’s not catching. Hadn’t TB been eradicated?” Obviously in rural parts of Wales it hadn’t.

Turns out they were talking in Welsh.

The copper turned to me and said

“Doc says you’ve been stung multiple times on the foot by an insect. Probably a wasp he reckons so you’re free to go boyo.”

No apology. Nothing!

So I asked him how I was going to get back and was told,

“The police aren’t a cab service. You’ll have to get a bus back. Next one’s at 10 o’clock tomorrow.”

Would you let this man examine your teeth?

Brilliant! So I started limping back. Only 7 miles. Half way back I saw Omar heading towards me. He’d got lost trying to get to where I was. By the time we got back it was too late to surf. So we gave it a miss, ate some food and smoked some of our stash of mind altering narcotics! Tidy.

The second time was more recent although it was still 13 or 14 years ago. I was recently divorced and was out with Ed and Greg at football training one sunday morning. Ed was probably 6 or 7 and Greg about 3 or 4. On the way back to what was now their home, something came in through the car window and hit me on the head. I looked around but couldn’t see what is was that had hit me. I asked the boys if anything had gone in the back but they hadn’t seen anything. So I continued on my way and forgot all about it. We pulled up outside their new house and bailed out of the car. As I stood up I discovered what had hit me on the head and also exactly where it had landed. It was a bloody wasp and it had landed on my inner thigh, right at the top. And boy was it ticked off! It stung me right on the soft fleshy bit.

“Fuck” I gasped.

“What does fuck mean Dad?” said Greg.

“Ahhh. Ask your mum son.” I replied. Big mistake! I thought he’d forget.

So I drop the boys off, say goodbye and drive off again. Three minutes later my phone rang. It was PIL. Boy did she bend my ear!

“Why is Greg asking me what ‘Fuck’ means you idiot. Have you no self control. He’s three for Gods sake blah blah blah……….”

Bloody wasps. Nothing but trouble.

Have a nice day

More Dick soon.

Dick