stung

Did you know that most bees nest on the ground? Me, neither. And I never would have found that out if I hadn’t mowed the lawn last weekend. I should’ve skipped it and gone paddling instead, like I wanted, but nnooOOOoo. I had to be a responsible homeowner.

I must’ve mowed the lawn a couple hundred times in the past twelve years we’ve lived in our little red house, but this has never happened before. I was plodding across the front yard, pushing the mower along, about halfway through the job when I felt someone or something stick a hot needle in my foot, just above my left ankle. I jumped and grabbed at it, expecting to find something roughly arrow-shaped and about six feet long sticking out of my foot, but nothing.

At about the time I was looking at my left foot, another hot needle jabbed me through the right calf. That one felt like it went in so deep that I spun around and danced all the way across the lawn to the driveway before I came to a stop. I would’ve won the trophy on Dancing With The Stars. Honest, you would’ve been impressed. When I stopped, yet another hot needle jabbed my right calf. This time I looked down in time to see the bee, a big, fat bumbler, jabbing away at me with his butt. Smacked the shit out of him.

My dance must’ve gotten me far enough away from wherever they were bedded down in the grass, because I didn’t get stung any more. I didn’t know they were in the grass then. I was looking up in the tree like a dummy, expecting to see a swarm among the branches, like mowing the lawn would’ve pissed them off way up there. It wasn’t until later when I told My Darling B about getting stung that she googled bees and told me that something like seventy percent of all bee species make their nests in the ground. I don’t think they were nesting, because I went back much later and finished mowing the lawn without getting stung again. I think maybe they were resting somewhere in the grass when I mowed over them and pissed them off. Next time I mow, I’m going to use B’s flamethrower.