my dad vs. the killer hornets or what happens to parents when they retire

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents to pieces. They're both smart, helpful, wonderful people. Normally I have no problems with the fact that my genetic material comes from them. But every once in a while....[sigh]...I get a little worried.

My mom is a gardener. My dad, not so much, but he helps with the garden under what I like to call the "New Millenium Treaty". Things like installing new rubber borders, ordering wood chips and installing fountains fall into his department. As does the elimination of stinging insects, a job that manly men have taken care of since the dawn of time.

My dad's definitely a manly man, and pretty tough. He's nuked his fair share of wasp's nests from our backyard, a feat that impresses me to no end, since I have a deeply rooted wasp and bee paranoia. So when my parents discovered they had a hornet nest under the front flower boxes it seemed only logical that my dad would take care of it.

One thing I should mention: the previously-nuked wasps' nests were usually hanging from the roof of either the house or the garage, except for one time when they were under the porch. In both cases it was very obvious as to the size of the nests. In the case of the roof nests, my dad would blast 'em with the hose, they'd fall down, and he'd drown the nest until all the wasps went away, then he'd mash the remnants up and throw them away. With the porch...well, it's concrete and there's only one hole. Hose in, water on, wasps-no-more.

The hornet's nest, on the other hand, was underneath a wooden flower box that's about half a metre square. The hornets were also very naturally angry beings - my parents had each been stung several times just hanging out in the yard, whereas the wasps, to my knowledge, never felt violent towards anyone but me.

So my dad suits up for the hornet mission in the traditional protective wear of dads everywhere: ski clothes. Seriously. Toque, mitts, long underwear, neck warmer, ski goggles, long sleeved sweater and jeans tucked into his socks. Sensing a bad idea coming up?

He goes outside, gets the sprayer hose, and tips over the flower box. Hornets everywhere. It's hornet times square, hornet LAX, hornet rush hour, right there in our yard. And they are all extremely pissed off.

The nest itself was not your typical melon-sized wasp nest. It stuck up from the ground only about a foot or so, but it went down about three feet into the ground. This is hornet-miami. And my dad is trying to be hurricane ivan. [no worries, I'm pretty much done with the hornet-city metaphors now]

My dad starts spraying and spraying and spraying. Then he starts feeling hornets crawling up his pants, so he sprays his feet. Hornets in his shirt? Sprays himself in the chest and arms, and then he starts to feel them beginning to penetrate his ski goggles, so he sprays himself, full force, in the face with the hose. This cause his mask to fog up, so he's standing there, in the middle of a storm of hornets, frantically spraying water all over himself, even though he can't see a thing.

This is when it begins to dawn on him that this was a really bad idea. So he tries to retreat by running towards the house, where my mom has been watching the show through the screen. The hornets, sensing their victory is near, follow.

So my mom sees my dad, dripping wet and sprinting blindly towards the house, while being followed by a giant cloud of really pissed-off insects. She has the only good idea either of them have all day. She sprints for the basement and grabs a giant can of RAID.

My dad makes it into to the house, along with about fifty flying hornets, plus all the extra-friendly ones who've come along in his shirt and pants. He ends up taking a shower with all his clothes on. Any event that ends with showering fully clothed is usually a sign that something went terribly wrong. He has about fifty dead hornets in his clothes, and an equal number of stings. My mom also gets stung four or five times while hunting down the hornets that were still airborne. She perfected this technique whereby you shoot the hornet while it's flying with the RAID. It apparently takes a couple seconds, but then it just falls right out of the air. The house-hornet purge takes a few hours. My cat "helps".

This next part is where you really wonder "are these people idiots?" and the answer is "yes. absolutely." And they're my parents, so I foresee a future where I too, will be an idiot. [Though not with hornets. I am very clear where I stand on stinging insects.]

My dad decides to try again. Holy wow, why on earth would they not call an exterminator at this point? Someone with a real bug suit and very powerful hornet-killing chemicals?

So he suits up again. But better this time. [in theory anyways] This time, he wears the full ski ensemble. toque, mitts, neck warmer, goggles, long underwear, two pairs of socks [cause that'll really make a difference? these are very resourceful hornets. These hornets could win the Apprentice, and he's thinking two pairs of socks will foil them?], jeans tucked in, snowpants, two shirts, a ski jacket and moonboots. I was kinda hoping he'd end up in the shower fully clothed again, just because I'm really curious about what would happen to snowpants and moonboots in the shower.

He goes out again, this time equipped with the hose and the can of RAID. He starts spraying water again, and then follows it up with basically the whole can of RAID. The hornets die. The RAID, I have to admit, was a good idea. However, they'd already discovered it took a couple seconds to kill the fuckers, so I'm not sure how well thought through it was. He stomps all over the nest, reducing it to mini nest particles.

A few hornets return over the next few days, but are stymied by the fact that he's blocked up the nest's entry point, and the fact the both my parents would now wildly spray copious amounts of RAID in the general direction of anything that even smelled like a hornet.

When they told me this story, I ended up lying flat on the floor, dying of laughter. Imagine being one of my neighbours - you look out your window, and there's this guy out on his front lawn, dressed in full ski wear in the middle of a very hot September, spraying himself in the face with a hose as angry, angry hornets swarm all over him.

I wish I could've taken a picture, framed it, and titled it "What happens to parents when they retire."

hee.

Love ya' mom and dad!