Sting Like a Bee

This morning I was driving to work as I do 5/7 days of the week. The Shikar has no air conditioning so I had the windows down as usual. My favorite song of the moment was blasting on the radio and I was tapping the steering wheel to the beat. Had I been near a beach it would've been a cliche scene from a bad teen drama.

Instead my hair was going nuts with the heat and I was stuck at a stop light in Virginia. The light turned green, I accelerated, and wouldn't you know it, a large friend decided to join me.

A wasp the size of a clementine flew in my window and landed on the dashboard. As I was driving 50 mph it's stinger zipped by me. And it sat there. And stared at me. It was hairy, I had never seen a hairy wasp. Maybe it wasn't a wasp at all. But it had a stinger.

I froze. My eyes were wide behind my sunglasses. I was in the center lane, pulling over required checking my blind spot and taking my eyes off the huge stinger that was staring at me. But I had no other choice. I pulled into a parking lot on the side of the road, put my car in park and had every intention of getting out. Then the thing started flying around inside the car. Before I could get out.

I started to panic.

Then it flew right out the window again. Not like the bird who always got stuck on our screen porch and couldn't find its way out. This wasp-like creature knew exactly how to get back out.

And it was today that I realized my previously unknown fear of being trapped in an enclosed space going at a high speed with a creature that can sting me. My heart was in my throat before I even got to work.