busy as a Mexican paper wasp.

Y'know how when something kinda bad happens and you just have this sinking feeling that you are on the verge of a landslide of bad happenings?  Well, here we stand (we being my family).

Saturday hubby was cutting some trees down and he got stung by what we think are Mexican paper wasps.  His hand swelled up and he was in a fair bit of pain.  (Man-pain, though.  Which for comparison's sake:  a man being in a "fair bit of pain" = a woman being in labor with twins.)  This led to the frightening discovery of a wasp hive in some boxes of stuff that we have "in storage" next to our garage.  This led to a discussion about how to get rid of said hive.  (It's hard to tell how large the hive is or to scientifically estimate how many wasps could be in said hive.  Estimates range from three inches to three feet in length and anywhere from 20-2000 wasps.)

Hubby and I have been thinking about the hive quite a bit since Saturday.  He called some sort of wasp guru and she said hive removals can cost up to $800.  Currently we have about a $20 in checking, so we're thinking that won't work.  She also said that Mexican paper wasps can somehow sting through basically metal and so you are pretty much defenseless against them.

I had a nightmare in which giant bees were chasing Girl 3 and it was scary.  I told hubby I had a nightmare about the bees and he said, "Me too."  The fear this is unleashing is kinda a movement in our family right now.

So, today we got a notice that we are having bulky pick-up very soon in our neighborhood to which we all said excitedly, "Yay!  We can finally get rid of those boxes stacked by the garage."  Followed by a depressed, "But, how are we going to kill the wasps?"

This led to a terrifying dinner discussion which was disturbing yet typical of my family.  Here are some solutions that were proposed (most of them by hubby).

1.  Dress in multiple layers of clothing with our ski gear on top and modified BMX helmets for head protection and unleash several cans of whoop ass wasp spray on the hole in the box.  (Incidentally, when this first happened and we saw the hole in the box which is the opening of the hive, the 1. Cut a hole in the box jokes began.)  Boy child said to this idea, "That might work, but what if someone sees us?"  Point well taken.  Plus, we couldn't decide who would be the main person on this.  Hubby sweats a lot and it's still like 90 here, we don't really want to put the children at risk, and I don't have good aim.

2.  Get a second opinion.  This was Girl 1's idea.  If I had to pick a rational member of the family during this conversation, I pick her.  Hubby said he'd already as good as gotten one (see #6), and that pretty much shut her down.

3.  Put a lighted torch type/molotov cocktail on the end of a large (like 14 foot) pole that we have (why do we have that pole?) and somehow maneuver the pole into the hole in an attempt to burn them out.  To this I said, "Yeah, but then we have the same problem if they swarm us and we just go back to needing our suits and wasp spray."

4.  Burn down the entire garage (this was, surprisingly (?), Boy Child's suggestion).  We all kinda liked this one because we all hate cleaning the garage and we've been wanting to start over for a while.  But, y'know, laws and stuff.  And I said I'd feel really bad if we accidentally burned the neighbor's garage down, too.

5.  Somehow maneuver a tarp over the wasps (without them knowing) and then after the tarp was sealed (with rocks?) on all sides we would stick a fogger in there.  This seemed like a reasonable suggestion to us.  But, how could we get the tarp over them without getting stung?

6.  Ask our neighbor who "knows a guy" that can do it for $50 to give us that guy's number.  And call him.  The kids and I really liked this idea.  We pointed out that it kept our family safe and if we called the guy tonight, we could still get our wasp-free boxes to the curb (and possibly clean the garage) this weekend.  Hubby hated this idea.  He said $50 was still too much and we were up for a challenge.

In the end (I think it's the end?), hubby said the only way it's getting done is if we all take a job.  We've kinda decided (I guess?) that three of us will dress in suits (I'm not sure what kind, but I might be getting our ski clothes out of the attic), the youngest will man the phone (in case she needs to call 911), Girl 1 will drive the getaway car, and Girl 2 will be in her room on her phone and after we've exterminated the wasps, come out alive, and are wiping the sweat off of our brows will bounce downstairs and say, "What'd I miss?"