Sep 24, 2010

A Monster in My Car.

I went to the bank last week to try to figure out how to get them to stop charging me 3 dollars every month. Something about not having the correct account, because I'm a college student and I had an adult account or something. I don't really know, but I got it all taken care of. Hooray!

The funny thing happened when I was leaving. It was a fairly warm day, and so I had my windows cracked while I was inside. I usually do in the summer. Now, I don't actually know if everyone knows this about me, but I have an awful fear of bees/wasps.

I was trying to think of why I'm so terrified of them, and I'm pretty sure it comes from this one time when I was playing outside with my friends. I might have been in 3rd grade at this point. We had been riding our bikes around, and so we all had our helmets on and we were sitting in the shade. A wasp flew over to us, and Ashley and Tyler jump up out of the way, but I recalled Scooter telling me once that if a bee comes near you, you shouldn't run away, just hold still and it'll go away. So that's what I did. Which, for future reference, is not the thing to do with wasps. Anyway, the wasp was crawling around all over my face and by my mouth and eyes, it was truly one of the scariest experiences of my life. It would crawl into the holes in my helmet, and I've since decided that it was looking for a place to nest. I had to tell Ashley and Tyler what to do, too. I tried having them go get Scooter, but the doors to the house were locked. So Tyler got his mom, and she came out and got the wasp off me. To this day, I still have not been stung, and I do everything I can to ensure it stays that way. I have more scary stories, just ask if you ever want to hear any.

But back to the present. After I was done at the bank, I got into my car and put on my seat belt, and started to drive away. I had just breaked to exit the parking lot, and I heard a buzzing coming from right by where the driver's seat belt feeds into the car. Since I was already stopped, I looked over to see what it was, sorta assuming it was a fly. It wasn't, and you guessed it. It was a wasp.

I flipped out. I was kinda screaming in a hysterical way that wasn't very loud. But I'm proud to say that I had the presence of mind to put my car in park, I put the parking break on, and I took off my seat belt, probably hitting the wasp in that process, and then crawled over to the passenger seat. I turned on the hazard lights, because I was RIGHT THERE, blocking off the exit to the bank, and if someone needed to leave, I wanted them to go around. I tried opening the car door, but it was locked. So I hurried and unlocked it, nothing on my mind except trying to untrap myself and get away from this monster.

I finally made it outside, and I walked around to the driver side of the car. I can see the wasp, it's at the bottom of the window and trying to escape, but my window was only cracked like maybe 2 inches, so it was hopelessly confused. I tried helping by opening my door, but at that point, it had settled in nicely and didn't look like it was trying to leave anymore. So I started tapping the other side of the glass trying to get it to leave. I even yelled at it. "Get out of my car!"

I stopped, clearly that wasn't working, and I looked around. And there's this guy and this lady standing there, they were previously talking while he smoked before going in to the bank, but they had just sorta stopped and were staring at me. They're just staring openly, and I can't blame them when I think about how ridiculous I must have looked, and they don't even see anything in my car from there. So they're both just staring at me open mouthed and confused.

So I called over to them, being pretty friendly. "Hi."

The guy answered. "Are you ok?" haha.

"Yeah, I'm fine... There's just a bee in my car."

The lady starting laughing lightly, and I can't honestly say I blame her. But the guy asked if I wanted help. I told him that would be great, if he wanted to. So he came over and hit the wasp with his glasses until it flew away. I said thanks and told him that I'm just really scared of bees, and he said it was fine.

Let me tell you, that experience really restored my faith in the kindness of strangers. I would have probably stood there for hours waiting for the wasp to fly away on it's own if they hadn't been there.

And, needless to say, my car windows have since been completely rolled up. I'd rather deal with the heat.

3 comments:

Susie said...

I'm grateful for the stranger, too. I'm not wild about wasps either. Bees are one thing, wasps are another. I think they LIKE hurting people.

TheWizard said...

And I'm proud of you for not getting distracted and running into any other vehicle. Turning on the emergency blinkers was also a nice touch.

Berserk said...

I second what Dad says. :)

I got stung by a wasp a few weeks ago, but I still think I came out ahead in our exchange. It was crawling around on my neck, so I swatted it with my hand. Took the stinger right in the middle of my palm, but the wasp died from the impact.

Next time, I think I'll brush it away with the back of my fingers instead.