Emirhan has been known to let conversations from his dreams spill over into real life, so this morning when we were fast asleep and he started yelling “it got me, it stung me!” I didn’t think too much of it. Groggy and out of it myself, I attempted to go back to sleep, but he shook me awake and repeated, “I’m serious, it stung me, wake up! It’s over there now, just sitting there. See?” I didn’t have my contact lenses in, so I couldn’t really see what he was pointing at. I shook the sleep out of my head and asked him to tell me again what happened. Apparently while we were sleeping peacefully, a lone waspy-type thing landed on his leg and started walking around. The tickling sensation caused Emirhan to reach down, and I guess the intrusion of a hand annoyed the wasp and it stung him, which of course woke him fully. It then flew away from the bed, but settled on a ledge about an arm’s distance away. There it sat, staring us down.
Wasps/bees/hornets are my only real phobia in this world. I can handle just about anything else, but I’ve been stung too many times and had too many trips to the doctor (due to an allergy to certain stings) to believe that nonsense myth about “if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.” That’s just not true. Believe me, there is no one on this planet who stays out of the way of wasps more than I do, and still they come after me. Just talking about it makes my stomach turn. The very thought of their existence chills me and elevates my heart rate. So being shaken to consciousness with the news that there was an angry wasp hovering over our bed and that it had already attacked once, got my wheels in motion to say the very least. I told Emirhan to get as far away as possible, and I ran out of the room after him (he was a lot more calm about the whole thing than I was).
We inspected the sting on his leg, which was red and swollen and apparently quite painful. He asked me if he should clean it, which I thought was a great idea. So after he disappeared into the bathroom, I braved a trip back to the attack site to see if the wasp was still there and if I could get a close enough look at it to Google it.
It was still sitting right where we left it, not moving at all except for a pulsing of the lower abdomen <shudder>. The tell-tale yellow stripe told me this wasp was one of those aggressive ones that flew into my hair a couple of years ago <SHUDDER>. I never did find out what that thing was, but we have them everywhere around here, so I figured it would be easy enough to find on the internet.
Sure enough, it’s a local variation of an Oriental Hornet. I looked at several web pages about this hornet and learned that it has one of the most painful stings in the world. I also learned that they tend to travel in families, and that the venom from the sting has a scent that alerts and attracts the other family members to the scene so they can help with the attack. Oy. The fact that we hadn’t been subjected to that horror, combined with the failure of the hornet to fly away or move much at all afterward, led me to believe that he was probably injured and confused and acting on his own. When Emirhan came back from the bathroom, I explained my findings, and he put the hornet to rest.
Anyway, so that was the end of that drama, but now anytime my hair brushes against my neck I jump about a mile in the air. I have no idea how I’m going to get to sleep tonight.
Emirhan seems okay; the swelling has gone down considerably and the redness is almost completely gone. He says he’s just glad it wasn’t me, because that might have meant a trip to the hospital. Indeed. But I still don’t like that it happened at all.