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February 19, 2004
There was a time last year when hornets swarmed the neighborhood. Well, not like everywhere you turned there was a hornet up in your face. In fact, I don't think I ever saw one outside. They were all inside. They were in Natalie's house too, and she lives just down the road, so I say neighborhood because if they were in our houses, who's to say they weren't in someone else's house too? I just like to include everyone.
They didn't have a hive or anything. If hornets even have hives. Wait, yes, they do. They must, otherwise the term "hornet nest" wouldn't stick out so much in my head. But they didn't have one in our house. If they did, I don't know where it was, so I think it's safest to assume that there just never was one. How they got in, then, I don't know. A true mystery. It might have been the hole in the screen door that we just ignored. I've always said to my mom, we should really get a glass door. It looks better than a screen, and a hole in it wouldn't go unnoticed. Speaking of that screen door, back when my cats were allowed downstairs, they would either get very impatient or very adventurous. Somehow, they managed to break the screen in the door, just ripped it open, so they had a cat door. And they'd just jump in and out. You'd always know when they did that, because Kibby kicks things when he jumps. Currently, there is a gate separating my room from the rest of the house, so as to keep the dog away from the cats. Kibby and Mo want to walk around though, so they'll jump the fence. Mo does so like an expert without touching it, but Kibby always kicks it. I don't think Mo ever jumped through the door. How the hell did this get to be about my cats. I think the point was that there were holes in the screen door, and that's how the hornets most likely got in.
At first it was just one, or two, or five. And they'd always cluster around the porch door. Natalie and I would give the latest report to each other everyday on the bus. How many do you have? There were maybe eight. Ten. Ten hornets in one room, and the only weapon you've got is a rag on a stick.
When I say hornet, I don't mean bumbly bees. Which also come around here a lot, or at least they used to when we had that bush with the purple flowers next to the door. I don't know where that thing went, but we have others around the house, so the bumblies go there. But I don't mean them. I mean hornets. I was thinking of going to animalplanet.com and finding a picture of the hornets I mean, but I get afraid of pictures of scary animals. Granted, I did live with these monsters for like a month, but I never got close to them. And everyone knows that informational books or websites always have to have close up shots of the animal. And I also don't like sharks, especially blue sharks, because shark eyes are so much scarier than shark teeth, and blue sharks have the scariest eyes, and documentaries always have to get RIGHT UP in their faces because of their lovely pointed snouts. I hate close ups of any animal that is not either a mammal or a dolphin. God, my grandpa used to give me these pamphlets that Animal World or something lame used to send him, and I loved the tigers and wolves, but I couldn't touch the shark one. Actually, I don't think I could touch the orca whale one either. I looked inside that thing and immediately understood why they were nicknamed killer whales. And to think, I once had a dream that I was that little boy from Free Willy. Puh.
What am I talking about? This was about the hornets in my house. I really can't talk about anything for too long. Anyway, I've got a better idea. Why don't you go to animalplanet.com, search "hornet," then find a really close up picture of one. Only one. Then print it out. Then print out fifteen more. Then tape them all to your porch door. Then leave your house and forget that you just taped a bunch of hornet pictures to your door. Come back a little while later, still forgetting, and be completely shocked and terrified when there are SIXTEEN HORNETS ON YOUR DOOR. Because that's what it was like when I came home from school. I took the cake for sixteen hornets. That was the most we had seen. Sixteen probably doesn't seem like a lot. But that's because you didn't go through with the plan, so you just don't know.
Mom crushed all of them with a towel, and they all made a gross crunching sound, like what a Corn Pop sounds like under your foot. Their insides were yellow--also similar to a Corn Pop. But Corn Pops don't leave streaks on your windows.
I'm not sure what the point of this story was. I was just recalling, that's all.
- Molly{12:21 pm}
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