Battle to the Death!

I am getting a big post ready about my trip, I promise. I got the pictures up on Facebook yesterday, but I am still working on the narrative.

In the meantime, here is a funny story from yesterday.

Ian was napping, and I was sitting on the couch knitting and watching Oprah. (I know it was Saturday. I have a DVR.) All of a sudden this humongazoid wasp comes flying into the living room! I mean this thing was huge, it was about an inch and a half long. It comes soaring in the living room like a helicopter and I freaked out. I ran into the kitchen and got the fly swatter and prepared for battle. But then I realized I couldn't bring myself to get close enough to kill it with the swatter, so I went back for the broom.

I went back in the kitchen, grabbed the broom, and ran into the living room on the right side just as it flew into the kitchen from the left side. So I went to run back into the kitchen the way I came, but this thing went all the way around and came right for me! I backed up, tripped over the bathroom door, and fell on my butt as the vile beastie flew right over my head and back into the living room. It was winning!

It flew over to the window, and I followed with the broom. It landed on the curtains so I whacked it. Still alive! I whacked it again! And again! And again! And again! By now it was trapped in the curtains (sheers) and it couldn't escape, so I just kept hitting it. But it was not dying! I was hitting it so hard I began to think I might break the window. And clearly, if I let it out of the curtains it would just start flying around again. So I took the broom and began mashing it into the window, through the curtains. I had to mash it about five times before it fell, stunned, to the window sill.

It was down, but not out. It was still trying to crawl away, and it looked like it may make a recovery. So I got the fly swatter. (Better leverage, not so fluffy) I came back and beat it with the fly swatter about five more times before it was clear it wouldn't survive. It was still twitching, and it was weakly flexing its stinger, but it had mortal wounds.

So I took it outside and took pictures. Keep in mind this is after I beat it between 30-40 times with a broom and a fly swatter:

(I wish I put something in for perspective, but trust me, it was as long as two knuckles of my pinky finger.)

So I came back and looked it up online. It took some searching, but I discovered it is a mud dauber wasp. It is not aggressive. (figures... I could have just shooed it out) They do sting when extremely provoked (ie stepped on, mishandled, beaten to death with a broom) and I guess it is really painful. They are lone wasps (so I don't have to worry about hundreds of them at least), and they build a little nest, catch spiders, paralyze them, and put them in their little mud nests. Then they lay eggs on the stunned spiders and seal them in their little horror tombs of death.

Nice.