Don't Point that Thing at Me!

So, the past couple weeks I have been hit with a number of animal stories. Unfortunately they have all been real downers. Grim realities for sure and nothing I really want to get too into at this moment.

Spring is coming, the flowers will be blooming before we know it. So, with the flowers comes the bees.

I've had my share of Bee adventures since living in this old house. Cracks in the walls and they find them, start building their hives. Luckily I haven't been stung in many years.

I do remember my first time I got stung. Do you remember your's? Mine definitely could have been a lot worse than what it turned out to be and to this day I am still thankful how it didn't happen. There is a lesson to this, something one should think about in similar situations in the future.

When we lived up in Bradford, Ontario 25 years ago... we spent a lot of our summers at the public pool. When we got home, we'd hang our swim trunks out on the clothes line to dry off. So, one day, I am thinking about going up to the pool. I bring my swim suit in from outside, take it upstairs to my bedroom to get changed. The trunks are turned inside out and I set them right, pull them up my legs and... you know, get dressed... just trying to emphasize that this is a bit of a travel with the swim trunks from outside, through the house, up to my bedroom, and then put them on only after I turn them rightside out. I am thinking some of you know where I may be going with this one... yes, there was a Bee resting on the swim suit. Now, I did not know this yet, not even when I had my trunks on, tied up too.

A short moment after tying them around my waist, I felt this sharp pain on my rear end. I pulled the legging bit up to see what it was. All I see is this little black thing sticking in my skin. I am thinking, "Hmmm, this little piece of stick hurt that much?" I then pulled it out. The spot began to swell really fast... and then, in the corner of my eye, I see a Bumble Bee, lying dead on the floor of my bedroom. I was 12 but I freaked out like a 6 year old.

I ended up going swimming a little later on anyways and the swelling went down in a day or two.

To this day, whenever I think about that incident, I can only imagine in horror if that Bee had been resting on the front side of my swim suit. I cringe and want to cross my legs in terror. Anytime now, when I have clothes hanging out on the line, I still shake them *violently* for lack of a better word at the moment...