The girl and the hornet's nest

No, I’m not talking about an international fiction bestseller; I’m talking about me.  You just can’t make this stuff up.

First let me explain a few things…

*  I am allergic to bee stings.

* Somehow, even loving nature as I do, I have managed to avoid venomous stinging insects for many years.

* This year for some reason there are a lot of hornets around my house.

*  At night if I turn on the porch light, they flock to it and my front door as if it were a magnet.

*  There can be hundreds of hornets in a single nest

*  Hornets emit a pheromone that alerts other hornets to a threat and signals an entire nest to attack.

So I don’t turn on the porch light.  My husband doesn’t seem to get it and automatically turns it on at dusk.  Last night before bed I got ready to take the dog out for one last bathroom break.  My husband told me he was going to watch a little TV in bed and went upstairs.  I opened the door and went out never noticing that the porch light was on.  After doggy did her business, I started to go inside but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw that several hornets were congregating around my door.  In fact it would be impossible to get by without disturbing them!  Two of them were crawling around the storm doorframe and three were on the doormat. Heaven knows how I got past them when I went out!

Dilemma:  I don’t kill bugs and even if I did, the thought of activating some pheromone that would set the whole nest on me made me cringe.  Husband was happily watching TV upstairs. After years of working around jet engines he only has...so-so hearing.  Get where I'm going with this yet?

I picked up a fallen tree branch and tried to push the doorbell, no luck.  Then I spied the pooper-scooper, angled it and lined it up with the doorbell.  I pushed, and it rang, and rang and rang. Husband dear, as I feared, was hearing nothing.!!!  Fruitlessly, I waited for him to come down the stairs hoping I could shout at him through the storm door not to open it but to let me in through the garage.

A light bulb went off, no not the porch one. (For those of you who are not into cartoons it means an idea popped into my head)  The garage had button codes for opening!  The dog and I walked over to where the keypad should be...and what do you know.., no keypad!  As I searched in the dark, I realized that the painters, who had been working during the day, had removed it in order to paint the trim! 

The night was getting a bit chilly. Back to the front door I went…pooper-scooper in hand I rang some more.  After a grueling 30 minutes or so of pooper-scooping the doorbell, husband wandered down the stairs.  Thank god for that pooper-scooper!  I yelled at him not to open the door but let me in from the garage. Confused, but cooperative he opened the garage.  I guess you could say I was mad as a... hornet.

I wouldn’t have to spend the night on the lawn, curled up in the bushes with only an 11 lb. Jack Russell terrier to keep me warm.  Hopefully the hornets will soon be gone with the cooler weather approaching.  Today I am putting a post it note by the porch light switch…”do not turn on after 6 p.m.

And for those of you who will be visiting me soon I would forgo the doorbell and just knock.

I am entering this quick sketch of my nemesis in this week's Sunday Sketches so I'll see you there!