Lesson Six: “A Sting Operation”

         Summer.  August.  Bugs.  Jon.  Not a good mix.  Although Jon loved the summer and the heat, he never liked the bugs and insects that came with the season. Jon considered them creepy and crawly.  He’d never liked the way they stared at him with their tiny, beady eyes.  As far as Jon was concerned, ALL bugs stared at him.  ALL bugs watched him and ALL bugs had something against him.  Jon and bugs, a lethal mix almost as bad as mixing bleach and ammonia, another incident Jon would rather forget. 

            So there he was, walking in the sunshine, whistling a happy tune as he enjoyed the beautiful day.  The cleaning of the school was going well.  No major disasters so far this year and Jon was praying that it stayed that way. 

            Jon was heading out to the portables to do a little painting.  If he got started on the job early enough, he wouldn’t have to be painting in the heat later.  Rolling his painting cart behind him, Jon’s mind was oblivious to the rattling and banging of the paint cans, brushes, pans, rollers and other paraphernalia loaded on top.  He was thinking of 4:00 that afternoon.  By then, he’d be fishing at his favorite spot on his favorite lake on a beautiful summer day. 

            Rolling up next to the portable, Jon unloaded his equipment.  First off, he plugged in his headphones, put them on and turned on a well-worn CD of country music adjusting the volume on the CD player hanging on his belt.  Jon was a real country music fan and nothing made his day more than a load of music laden with lyrics about broken down relationships, one-night stands, lost love, beer-drinkin’ parties and the good ol’ USA.  Jon began bobbing his head to the music and dancing around his cart as he merrily unloaded the paint supplies and set up for the day’s work.

            Opening the lid on the can of paint, Jon plunged a stirring stick into the thick, creamy liquid and began to stir.  Humming and feeling the warmth of the sun on his back, Jon didn’t realize that a small ant had climbed onto his shirt.  A few seconds later, a small irritation on his neck arrested his attention.  Thinking nothing of it, Jon, still humming and dancing to the music, absent-mindedly reached up to scratch his neck and in so doing knocked the ant down inside his shirt. At first, Jon subconsciously thought that a piece of dirt or something out of the air had drifted down inside his shirt.  However, when a small bolt of pain registered in his brain that something was pinching him, he realized it wasn’t inanimate.  Visions of earwigs, miniature crabs, bees, wasps, ants and tiny pinching creatures filled his mind.  Unable to see what was causing the pain, Jon panicked.  Jumping up, Jon began hitting himself in the back with the paint covered stir stick.  Stripes of yellow paint appeared one after another across his green shirt making it appear that he was standing with his back against the inside of a prison door.  The more he pounded the more yellow his shirt became and the bluer his skin.  Finally, the tiny creature fell, dropping into a deep crevasse inside Jon’s pants.  One good pinch told Jon that his butt was in trouble.

            Hopping around like a bead of water on a hot skillet, Jon began grabbing his derriere and pulling vigorously to get the ant to drop out of his pants.  In the process, Jon hopped backwards and tripped over a second can of unopened paint and fell onto the ground.  Jon felt a small crunch in his back pocket.  His second country music CD was crushed.  Feeling a tickle underneath his pant leg, Jon picked up a paint brush and using the handle, smashed his knee in an attempt to end the life of the tiny ant.  Instead of ending the ant’s life, Jon ended up with a throbbing knee and an ant on the run back up his pant leg. 

            Jon jumped up hoping that the sudden movement might dislodge the tiny creature that was now moving around behind the back of his thigh.  When he felt another pinch, he knew it hadn’t worked.  Screaming, Jon reached down with his hands and began hitting his leg in numerous places in an attempt to crush the runaway insect.  When he felt a tickle on the front of his thigh and realized where the ant was heading next, Jon knew he’d missed.  That was the final straw.  Undoing his belt and unzipping his pants, Jon ripped them and his shoes from his body and threw them to the ground.  His CD player was torn from his belt and rolled into the side of the portable.  His headphones were jerked from his head and pulled taut around his neck.  Grasping at the cord, Jon struggled to free the wire from his throat while the ant, now fully exposed to the outside world, realized his life hung in the balance and high-tailed it for another good hiding spot.  Racing down Jon’s leg, the ant disappeared under the top edge of his right sock.  Two or three pinches immediately alerted Jon to the ant’s whereabouts.  Snapping the wire around his neck, Jon reached down and tore his sock from his foot, tripped, stepped into the can of paint and like some half-mechanized creature, stumbled down the slight incline toward the portable with a half-filled can of paint stuck to his foot and his pants lying on the ground behind. 

            Smashing head-first into the portable wall, Jon stepped on his CD player crushing it and at the same time unknowingly dislodged a large wasp nest over his head that was hanging under the eaves.  Although the nest wasn’t knocked completely loose, it was loosened enough to alert the wasps inside that something was wrong.  Sending out several scouts, the tiny flying creatures noticed a man standing far below; dazed, paint-drenched, bruised and confused. 

            Why you…., the wasps thought to themselves in the tiny circuitry of their tiny brains.  Try to shake our home loose and disturb us will you?

            With one high-frequency, humanly inaudible signal, the lead scout told the others that this intruder must be taken down.  No mercy was the call.  In a dive-bomb formation reminiscent of B-52 bombers during WWII, all ten wasps dove straight for Jon who stood unaware below.  Picking up speed, the whine of 20 tiny wings straining against the air slowly increased in decibel level until they were within just a few feet of Jon’s head.  Jon heard something and looked up.  To his horror he saw ten sets of kaleidoscopic eyes coming straight at him.  Momentarily paralyzed and wondering where these tiny flying, stinging machines had come from and why, Jon’s mind failed to tell him to get a running start.  Within a few milliseconds, it registered.  Wasps!  Big ones!  Jon turned and ran!

            Those few milliseconds cost Jon.  Before he could get his momentum to full speed, the lead wasp had attacked.  With the grace of a ballet dancer, the wasp was able, in midair, to fly, slow down, twist around and abdomen first plunge its tiny stinger into the soft, white flesh of Jon’s neck and then just as easily turn again and fly away before Jon’s hand had hardly left his side to slap at the sudden pinpoint of pain.  Jon yelled not only from the sting but also because he smacked himself upside his head and neck trying to crush the tiny creature.  Although Jon wasn’t deathly allergic to bees or wasps, he nevertheless did swell up when stung.  Today was no exception.  A few seconds after the first wasp attacked, the side of Jon’s neck began to swell.  The appearance of a grape under his skin formed around the area and the irritation slowly increased in intensity.    

            By now, Jon’s running had propelled him to full speed.  Not to be outwitted, the wasps followed with amazing alacrity.  Their ability to follow Jon’s every move and his every twist would have been the envy of any Air Force pilot trying to follow and shoot down an enemy warplane.  Picking up speed, two more wasps easily overtook Jon and plunged down his shirt.  Now, free from any air resistance, they landed on his back just above his waist and just below his shoulders; basically just out of reach of Jon’s hands and arms, and settled in for a nice ride and some fun with this human.  Jon reached behind himself as he ran trying to shake his tiny stowaways off his back and onto the ground.  The wasps sat quiet, resting, waiting.  Of course the anticipation of knowing they were there and what they would do next just added to Jon’s misery.  Jon continued to run in a frenzied and crazed pattern. 

            The wasps began to crawl around on Jon’s back.  His panic increased.  By now, Jon was several yards from the portable and still running.  Zigzagging back and forth, Jon attempted to outsmart and out maneuver his winged assailants while at the same time shaking off the two hitchhikers under his shirt.  Jon reached up and pulled his shirt over his head thinking this might dislodge the tiny intruders.  As he did so, he failed to notice the curb which dropped off the pavement and onto the lawn.  As the shirt came up, Jon went down.  As he fell, visions of his pants lying by the portable, two tiny specks of pure agony attached to his back and a swarm of fury following close behind, raced through Jon’s mind.  For some unknown and utterly stupid reason a quick message flashed on the information board of Jon’s mind as he approached the ground.  This is going to hurt!  It did!

            Jon crumpled onto the ground, the shirt entangled around his head and he began rolling down the hill.  Tangled in his shirt, Jon picked up speed like some runaway tire.  Bouncing head over butt and head over heels, Jon quickly became more and more bruised.  A scratch here, a bruise there, a sharp rock hither and suddenly two sharp pinpoints of pain in the middle of his back.  As if riding a bull at some rodeo, the two wasps cried out Woo hoo! to the world.   Jon didn’t hear them, but he did feel their spurs as they dug deep into his flesh.  Jon couldn’t believe that those tiny intruders were still hanging on.  The two intruders couldn’t believe how much fun they were having.  Wait until we get back to tell our friends, they thought to themselves.  Jon’s speed was rapidly increasing.

            Bouncing over another indentation in the ground, Jon’s shirt ripped free and his head popped loose just in time to see a mound of dog manure directly in front of his face.  Softening the blow, the manure squished around his face and smeared through his hair.  Unable to reach up and scrape the rancid odor from his nose, Jon had no choice but to endure as his body continued to rocket down the hill toward the small waste water pond at the bottom.  Between flashes of light and dark, Jon noticed that the gate to the pond had been left open.  That was fortunate for him because he knew he wouldn’t smash into the cyclone fence surrounding it.  On the other hand, however, he knew he would fly through the gate and land in the stagnant water.  With what he’d already gone through, stagnant water was the least of his worries.

            Bouncing over one last mound Jon became airborne and flew three feet into the air.  As his body twisted in mid flight, he turned slowly over and landed face down in the pond.  With a splash and spray of filthy water, Jon’s body disappeared beneath the surface, the momentum taking him to the bottom of the four foot deep pond and smashing his body into the layer of muck on the bottom.  Pushing upward, Jon broke through the surface gasping and panting for air.  Jon’s hands were still flailing when he realized that he was no longer under water.  Stopping, Jon stood, bewildered and in pain as he slowly observed his surroundings.  Reaching up, Jon wiped the remainder of the manure and mud from his hair and spit out a mouthful of something vile.  At the top of the hill stood the portable and receding from his vision a small swarm of tiny B-52’s going home.  Jon stood for a few minutes regaining his breath, getting his balance and slowly swelling like a dying Puffer fish.  A few minutes later Jon unhurriedly sloshed through the water and crawled out.  I guess this is as close as I’m going to get to fishing today, he thought.  A thick greenish-brown ooze dripped from his body and dark, rancid mud dribbled from between his toes.  Shaking like a dog, Jon tried to remove as much filth as he could.  Mustering his strength, Jon climbed the hill. 

            Jon gave the portable a wide berth as he headed back toward his office.  He didn’t want to get anywhere near the wasps nest again.  The paint supplies would have to wait.  As to his pants and shoes, well, he’d drive home and get another pair after cleaning up. 

                                                                        ___

            Vance, the school principal, came around the corner just in time to see a strange dark figure making its way across the parking lot toward the main building.  As it got closer, Vance noticed several areas bulging out from underneath the dark stain.  When it got close enough, Vance couldn’t believe that he was looking at Jon.  His hair was a mess; his body was covered in thick stinking slime, two huge bumps the size of golf balls stood out on his back, a large bump was evident on his neck and a nose that looked more like cauliflower were all readily apparent.  He also noticed Jon’s lack of clothing.

            “Jon, what happened?  Are you okay?”

            “I don’t want to talk about it,” Jon replied, attempting to avoid eye contact.

            “You need a doctor Jon.  You look bad.”

            “Thanks.  I know.  I don’t feel too great either.”  Jon shuffled slowly toward his office in search of some rags to wipe himself down.

            “I can call someone if you want, give you a hand.”

            “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.  I’m going home to clean up.”

            “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

            “Maybe I will, we’ll see.”

            Vance stood staring in disbelief.  That must hurt, was all he could think.  Poor Jon.  His life never seems to go right.  Vance watched as Jon entered the open door to his office.  Stepping inside he picked up a couple of rags and began to wipe himself down.  Vance stood staring at Jon’s frame in the doorway.  Jon didn’t care who was watching, he just wanted to go home.  Jon continued to wipe himself off unaware that Maria, one of the most gorgeous female teachers on campus, had stopped by to talk to Vance.  She’d come outside to find him and was dumbfounded when she saw Jon.  Jon was oblivious to their stares.  As he reached down to wipe off his underwear, he suddenly realized that what looked like dark, mud covered underwear was in fact, dark mud-covered skin.  Somewhere along the way, his underwear had been torn from his body and was probably lying on the hillside near the pond.  It was then that Jon felt the stares of shock resting upon his battered and bruised body.  Looking up, Jon saw Vance and Maria staring at him in an unbreakable trance.  Embarrassed, in pain and wishing he were dead, Jon tried in vain to cover himself up with a rag no bigger than a pocket Kleenex.  Vance and Maria continued to stare at the pitiable sight, mesmerized not only by Jon’s ragged condition, but more empathetically for Jon since a large, dark wasp was crawling slowly down Jon’s stomach to find shelter under the tiny rag that hung loosely in front of him.