We humans think we are so powerful.  Well, just put us in a confined space with a few little hornets and watch how we react.  The adrenaline starts pumping and flight becomes the biggest urge.

I bring this up today because we had our own terrorizing encounter with hornets.  Here is how the tale goes:

We have an old tiki carving that is attached to the stump of a popular tree in our backyard.

This is not your corny plastic Tiki from a big box store.  It was a gift to David many years ago from Indian Jeff.  It was weathered then, being made of some wood like cedar.  David loves this tiki and has painted it with accents over the years.  Time has not been it’s friend and we have been discussing pulling if off the tree and doing some repair/repainting work on it.

David was out using a crowbar to pull it off the tree when a cloud of hornets came out of the tree base and started attacking him.  I was sitting on the couch reading the paper when he came flying into the house escaping the hoard.  He thought he was home free and said he would get the crowbar he had dropped later.

But no!!  He had hitchhikes and we found one buzzing around our small backdoor utility area.  He either wanted out or was going to seek revenge for his queen.  We danced around like little kids needing to go to the poddy.  Like I said earlier hornets bring a lot of terror to humans for their size.

While David was swinging with a dish towel I was looking for the cat so we could open the door and let the bastard out.  I couldn’t find Reggie and was standing at the hall door to the space telling David to open the back door when I felt this electric shock in my knee.   The damn thing had taken his anger out on me.   I couldn’t get out of my sweat pants fast enough.  I thought i felt like he had crawled up my pant leg.   My heart was racing and my knee was on fire.  TERROR in my heart.   Then we saw the two dead hornets on the floor.   We were done with them.  David took his coat and my pants outside to shake out any other culprits.

Guess what?  I goggled hornet sting remedy and there it said WD-40 works wonders.  That was exactly what I did and within minutes the pain was tamped down to an annoying pinch feeling.  Ice helped too.  Next thing we know “The Cat” is staring at the bedroom window in a very engaged way.   And there in the drapery sheer was another damn hornet.

We went into the hornet dance again. Yes you can laugh at the visual I just gave you.  We were bouncing around with a dish rag and a dust buster like little kids in fear of being caught by the boogie  man.  Can you believe it we actually closed the door to trap the bastard in the room, so we could calm down.   That was when we lost him.  Now the terror was growing again, I looked around for him to no avail and finally shut the lights all out and again left for a few minutes.  When we returned we saw him again on the drape.  David took the dustbuster and put the suck on the cloth so he couldn’t escape.  Then I took a wet paper towel and smashed him.

Now the ordeal wasn’t over.  While I went for a walk Reggie found another one in the front window and David had to suck him up in the dustbuster.   When released back outside her flew into the hedge as fast as he could.

Paranoia is now in the house wondering if there was only five of them.  Reggie has gone to take a nap so we think we are home free now.  That is except the burning sting I have on my knee still 3 hours later.

One last thought.   Did the Tiki cause that?  Maybe he likes being drab and does not want to be messed with.  Something to ponder on a Sunday afternoon.