One very nice thing about living in the far north is that your house is free of bugs for six months a year. Well, unless you're a really filthy person, but then you're probably so used to it anyway that you don't notice. And of course if you've got a basement you've also got those arachnoid buggers that just haven't heard of that wonderful little word, "hiatus". But apart from those, there's not a fly, not a bee, not a single wasp in sight for six whole months! Yay! It's like being in heaven for a person like me, who goes "eww" at every encounter with an insect or spider. I've got a problem with a quite clingy bumblebee. It's been here two years in a row and will probably be back this summer. It just hates it when I'm sitting on my balcony, minding my own business, reading a book and bathing my legs in the sun whilst enjoying a cool popsicle. So it keeps buzzing around for hours, really annoying me. Sometimes it hides in the curtains so that when I've gone inside for the night, and I'm sitting in my chair, eating and watching the news, it suddenly comes out of there and decides to taste my food. Scares the crap out of me every time. I've also discovered that wasps just hate the colour yellow. I've completely given up wearing my only yellow tee-shirt during summer. It takes about one minute from I step out the door till there's a wasp buzzing around me when I'm wearing that thing. And I really, really hate wasps. When I was little I hated flies. I was really afraid of them. I refused to go into my room if there was a fly on my window-sill. Especially a live one. ;-) When I grew up I was told that the wasps wouldn't hurt you if you just kept still. I didn't listen to them at first, but one day I decided to take their advice. Some time later I was sitting quietly, watching a wasp sitting on my leg, doing its usual waspy thing, and suddenly it stung me and flew away. It happened so fast and unexpectedly that my immediate reaction was to kick my leg up in the air and wave it about a bit while half-shouting a very firm "Ouch!", but this caused my slipper to shoot off my foot and land behind the telly, taking a flower-pot with it. My foot hurt really bad and I was going to the fun-fair with some friends later that evening; that was a very painful walk, I can tell you! Since then I've been really scared of wasps. Could someone please tell me a reason for their existence? I mean, bees help pollinating the flowers and making honey, but what do wasps do? Any use at all, that can redeem their vicious actions against mammals? I know, I know, there's not much use for humans either, we're probably the most useless species of them all, but put that aside for a moment and help me find a way to excuse these buzzing critters, because I really want to "think happy thoughts" when I see them.

The flower-pot didn't break, by the way. And I had a couple of donuts on my way home from the fun-fair so that made me forget the pain for a bit.

Current track: Trying to find one, actually.

Labels: animals, personal, science