Bubblewrap and the Bees

Last Saturday, the day after the flood, in between praying that God would let us win some sort of 'Mend Your Money Pit' sweepstakes and fantasizing about packing up the dog and the kids and moving to someplace nice like Somalia, Tuck found time to mow the yard. I use the phrase 'mow the yard' as opposed to 'mow the grass' because once your yard becomes more than fifty percent weeds, you can no longer call it 'grass'. Yes, despite the extreme efforts that he has gone to to make our yard presentable, he has failed yet again this year. My Dad's suggestion to dig up the entire yard, pour concrete where the grass used to be and paint the whole thing green is looking better and better.

At any rate, my kids and two of their friends were sitting at the kitchen table arguing over who had the best corn dog, when Mr. Maurer came running in, pulled out his ear buds and lunged for the sink. Simultaneous calls of, "What happened Mr. Maurer?" and "What's wrong Dad?" rang through the air. Four boys between the ages of six and eleven can sense trouble like nobody’s business and just know that they have the expertise to help, no matter what. Mr. Maurer, it would seem had been stung by a bee...in the eye. Actually it was the eyelid but it was an unpleasant experience nonetheless. The youngest of our guests, who I'll call 'Bubblewrap' to protect his anonymity, has a severe fear of bees. This is odd since he has fear of little else - hence the name Bubblewrap, which is what I keep telling his Mom she needs to wrap him in to avoid any more stitches or surgeries. The bee attack shook Bubblewrap to his core. It took a Flav-o-ice and a shot of tequila to calm him down.

Ok, so after Tuck rinsed his eye in the sink for about an hour and walked around all 'look at my big, puffy red eye', I told him to get the hell back outside and finish the yard. I had praying and packing to do. So he did. He spent the remainder of the time that it took to finish the yard, to mentally concoct the perfect plan to extract his revenge against the family of bees that had taken up residence in the leg of the stop sign on our corner. He is a really nice guy but Hell hath no fury like a Tuck who has been injured by an inanimate or animate, as it would seem, object. In the past, I’ve been a witness to multiple, ruthless counterattacks: innumerable cabinet doors have paid the ultimate price (a punch to the gut) for daring to slam themselves into his big, bald head; He once cut an extension cord into pieces with some garden sheers after it dared to hurl its plug into his lip when he pulled it out of the receptacle with a bit too much force from 6 feet away; And he's called everything from a hammer to a laundry basket a "dirty bitch" more times than I can count when they have dared to harm even a hair on his...er...chest. The bee was going to have to pay.

After the mower was safely back in the garage, Tuck said he had to run to the home improvement store. He came back with enough Raid to land him on the EPA's watch list. As he sauntered out into the yard with a can in each hand, O.K. Corral style, he justified his actions to the bees, “All you had to do was fly away and let me finish my yard work. You brought this on yourselves. I thought we could live in peace. Then you had to go and do something like this. It didn’t have to be this way…” Operation Bee Blast then commenced. He unleashed enough toxic chemicals to eradicate every living bee, hornet, and wasp within a twelve mile radius of our house. As the smoke cleared and dead bees littered the yard, Bubblewrap ran out of the safe zone and greeted his hero with fist pumps, high fives and cheers of, "Way to go, Mr. Maurer!" Finally, a happy ending.