The Bee Slayer

Last night, when I got home from work, I parked my car in the garage as usual and closed the door behind me. The garage opens into a downstairs room and the main part of the house is upstairs.
As I opened the door to the downstairs room, I heard a dull droning hum that I immediately recognised as the horrifying sound of a very large swarm of flying bugs. Inside my house.

Bees, to be exact.

Between the window and the curtains there were about 40 or 50 bees flying around, buzzing like mad. From the crazy buzzing going on I could tell that they were worked up, which didn’t really do anything to put me at ease with having a swarm of bugs in my house.

I slipped carefully past the window, trying not to draw attention to myself – you know, in case the bees saw me and decided ‘this window is dull; let’s sting that person over there just for the hell of it’.

I crept up the stairs and began looking around the house to see if the downstairs room was the only place infested. I found one or two bees in the bathroom, but nothing in any of the other rooms until I checked the spare bedroom. There was a very loud but distant humming that told me they weren’t in the room – they were in the walls. I opened the curtains and outside, there were hundreds of the little suckers flying around and in and out of the vents on the side of the house.


At this stage try to imagine me doing a little freak-out dance, jumping up and down as I suddenly imagine I can feel bees crawling all over me.


As I stood in the room listening, the covered, domed light shade began to fill with dark, buzzing shadows. I flicked off the light, slammed the door shut and ran to the other side of the house, as though 10 metres of distance would save me from death by bee sting.

Several hurried phone calls later we had found someone to come out and take a look - a mighty Bee Slayer !!! (pest control is such a boring name don’t you think?)

An hour or so later in somewhat of a letdown after the excitement of a stinging bug infestation, we were bee free and I had learnt something about bees that I thought I might share with you.

Bees are not as bad-ass as they want you to think they are. Sure, they have that stinger; and that creepy buzzing they do makes your skin crawl. But the truth of the matter is they’re stupid. The reason that the bees were buzzing around in the window and didn’t fly out to sting me to death was because when they get stuck somewhere dark, they freak out and try to fly somewhere where there’s light. They try so hard that they panic, and fly around until they exhaust themselves to death. That’s right – they fly around and around until they die. Not so smart now, are you bees?

Regardless of their stupidity, I’m still happy to be Bee-free. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of bugs invading my house.

The Perfect Pets

A little while back there was a cat kind of stalking my house. The previous owners of the house had warned us that there were two cats that always strolled around as though they owned the place. I thought that was unlikely, as I'm pretty sure strolling can only be done on two legs, not four - but it turns out that they were right - we do have two strolling cats. It's a bit like having a pet, only way less work because I don't have to feed them or clean up after them. Also, I don't have to worry about where they are at night or get cat hair on everything, which makes them the perfect pets for me. I have even given them names. 'Fatty' for the fat Calico one, and 'creepy' for the creepy sort-of-black one that always stares at me with crazy eyes. I did briefly think about calling him Crazy, but Creepy seemed a little nicer.

About a week ago I was looking out my front window trying to out-stare Creepy when I noticed that there was something else running through our garden. It took me a second to spot him because he was ducking in and out of the trees. It was a boy of about 6 or 7 years of age. He was running around, playing some sort of imaginary game that involved ducking and weaving and I think possibly shooting things. He was there for about a minute or so and then he ran off back to the neighbours yard.

I've seen him about 3 more times since then, playing his strange imaginary game in our front yard and I've decided that 3 visits is enough for me to add him to the pet roster along with Creepy and Fatty. He needs a name to join the roster, and I've thought of a few, but nothing that seems right so far.

Initially I though I could call him Ducky, because of all the ducking and weaving he does around the trees - but that reminded me of the guy from that TV show 'NCIS' and he's a bit too chatty for a boy that runs silently around the front yard.

I thought of Johnny, because generic little boys in books are always named Johnny - but that seemed a bit too generic for a pet name. That is also why I discounted 'boy' - because there are too many dogs called 'dog' and cats called 'cat'.

I'm at a bit of a loss for a new name, so until I can think of something more appropriate, I'm going to call him Dough, because it's a bit like calling him John Doe, but marginally more interesting.

All suggestions are welcome.