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Wasps (and other petty vilenesses)

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12:01 / 15.12.04

Charles Darwin wrote

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars",

Ichneumonidae being parasitic wasps. For Darwin, these things were so unutterably vile that they suggested the absence of a benign Creator.

As theological arguments go, it's not exactly watertight. As an expression of revulsion at the foulness of wasps, however, it's pretty spot-on.

I hate wasps; I really hate them. If one's in a room, I cannot relax, I can't take my eye off it. I'm pretty sure the dentist-drill whine of evil little waspy wings against glass pushes my blood pressure up a good notch or five. I'm still feeling slightly shaky, having just killed the biggest one I've ever seen in this sceptred isle. I'd no idea the bastards hung around until December, but this monstrosity suddenly appeared, batting itself at the window and getting the cats all excited (which is a problem in itself, as anyone who's ever nursed a mouth-stung pet will attest to). I sprayed it with three different types of "fly and wasp killer", which succeeded in making it angry as fuck and then, finally, dead. Just got to pluck up the courage to remove its poisonous corpse before the cats crunch it up. I have the nagging, irrational fear that it's faking death, Fatal Attraction-style, and will leap back into buzzy, stingy life the moment I get a newspaper under it.

Brrrr.

If you were inclined to accept the existence of a benign Creator, which petty vilenesses would cause you to reconsider?

pointless and uncalled for

12:11 / 15.12.04

Cars

12:12 / 15.12.04

Televangelists?

12:23 / 15.12.04

Problem with killing wasps is that they release a pheremone which attracts other wasps and makes them angry. I don't know if this is the case with poisoned wasps.

Food poisoning and gastro illness in general. This is particularly personal at the moment.

12:33 / 15.12.04

It would have to be rats. I literally used to have nightmares about the fuckers. I'm not too bad now, probably since we got the cats and they started bringing mice in, but I still can't even bear to look at one on the TV (I'm A Celebrity... season is a particularly bad time for me).

I think I can pinpoint the time I developed my hatred of them. When I was a kid I used to walk home from school along a canal bank. When there was a group of us we often used to meander home by crossing the canal on one of the locks and walking a bit on a small ledge that abutted a factory wall, before crossing back over the canal at the next lock.

One time we came across a rat, which had evidently been poisoned. It was hunched up on the middle of the ledge, shivering and in its death throes. Everyone else skipped over it regardless; I was petrified and had to go back along the ledge and across the canal.

A few years ago I was in Thailand and walking past a building site late at night when this absolutely huge black rat ambled out of the shadows, stopped to look at me, then went to an overflowing rubbish bin and started to chow down. And I mean huge. Like a small dog. I immediately freaked, ran into the middle of the road, and flagged down a bemused tuk-tuk driver, leaping into the vehicle and demanding he roar off at the highest speed he could summon out of the thing.

Even now I'm a bit jumpy in long grass, up in the loft and in derelict properties. Not that I get in long grass or derelict properties much, these days.

12:56 / 15.12.04

Now I hate wasps and have been known to run across rooms, parks and pub gardens trying to escape their yellow-and-black evilness, which is embaressing for me, though amusing to any passers-by. As far as I can see an increase in wasps is the worst thing about the mild winters we've been having.
As for rats, I've never had a problem with them, I even had pet rats for a while.

13:10 / 15.12.04

My fear of wasps was triggered by following the advice I had always been given as a child which was to stay totally still. Tried that once, and one of the little bastards BIT me on my lip. The fucker didn't just try to sting me, it was trying to EAT me! Grr. Anyway, got over that phobia by being stung a couple of years ago. It hardly hurt at all, and gave me a mild buzz for the rest of the day.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

13:12 / 15.12.04

Problem with killing wasps is that they release a pheremone which attracts other wasps and makes them angry.

I've found that sucking them into the vacuum cleaner with the hose attachment is a good way around this. Let the mean little bastards stay there and eventually starve, I say.

I'm really hating on cold right now.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

13:16 / 15.12.04

Wasps! Argh. Seriously Ganesh, I'm with you. You are brave though.

I just leave the room with a window open and hope it flies away.

Proudest moment: clubbing a wasp at primary school with one fell swoop of a hockey stick.

Worst moment: Running in summer: wasp in mouth/seeing wasp on foot - evil bastard year above kicking my ankle, seeing deathly sting and white gunk inserted in to skin.

It seems that school pretty much set me up with this fear for life.

And my Dad fell in a hornets nest once. *shudder*

13:23 / 15.12.04

Another wasp hater but I can't bring myself to kill them, I was stung once and it scared the hell out of me my lip doubled in size which is scary at the best of times even more when you're a kid.

It's worse in the summer of course especially on the bus when nobody else seems to mind and I'm getting all edgy waiting for it to attack.

My uncle nearly died when he was attacked by a swarm when he was a kid.

Oh and pigeons.

13:23 / 15.12.04

I don't mind wasps much. I've had a nest of them above my front door for over a year and haven't bothered it. They haven't bothered me, either. It's a good arrangement.

I don't mind rats or spiders or snakes - have kept all as pets. Bugs and creepy-crawlies in general are cool, even ants, as long as they're a) biting me, or b) in my kitchen.

My usual routine if I find a stinging insect in the house is to carefully catch it with a glass and a card. My husband thinks I'm nuts.

The only thing that I can't tolerate the presence of, the only thing that makes me run squealing for help and that I generally make someone else dispose of, is cockroaches. More specifically, the two-inch-long, flying monstrosities we have here in Texas. The little ones aren't so bad, but these giant "waterbug" roaches are absolutely awful. They always take several attempts to kill - I mean, you can smash them with a brick and they'll just keep running. And sometimes they fly, suddenly, with a horrible whirring noise, and smack into you or get caught in your hair. EEEEEEUUUUUUUUUURGGHH.

Just thinking about them is making my skin crawl and my toes twitch.

Understand, I have enormous respect for them, I just, y'know, hate them...

13:28 / 15.12.04

Correction: "even ants, as long as they're NOT a) biting me, or b) in my kitchen."

Need more coffee...

13:28 / 15.12.04

Problem with killing wasps is that they release a pheremone which attracts other wasps and makes them angry.

AAAAGH! Why'd you have to tell me that, Fridge?!

*hyperventilates*

Evil, evil little devil-things. That's like Geiger's Alien with its acid blood: even killing the bastards causes hassle. Convinces me even more that wasps simply Should Not Be.

The problem with opening a window, and even sucking them into a vacuum cleaner (which appeals to my sense of wasp-schadenfreude) is that I wouldn't know for sure that they were gone for good. They might be hiding (having crept sneakily out of the hoover), lurking somewhere they just know will be brushed by naked flesh. No, they must be dead. Dead dead dead.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

13:35 / 15.12.04

Oh, I have to see they leave. Usually this is ok (french windows normally the culprit that lets them in) but sometimes there is a dangerous period of shutting and opening doors.

Kind of like Aliens, I guess.

13:44 / 15.12.04

I always understood that it wasn't killing wasps that released the angrifying pheremones but squashing them, though I cannot verify this.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

13:45 / 15.12.04

I once got stung by a hornet (it was blue and everything!). In the muthafuckin' face. I'm not sure there is much of a difference between wasps and hornets, but to be honest, the hornet seemed just as frightened as me. Didn't stop him from pumping an assload of poison into my face, though. Little shit...

So, for clarity, wasps don't die after they sting you, right? That's bees, I think.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

13:47 / 15.12.04

Bees are furry and non-evil. I like to stay clear of them still, but they are more pleasant and twee. They die after stinging you because they cannot cope... they CARE. And they only sting if you force them to, but you're forcing them to take their own LIFE. And thus sacrificing a pot of honey, that some poor bear may have to go without. What do you mean, it doesn't work like that?

Wasps are just evil. Fuck wasps.

13:48 / 15.12.04

So, for clarity, wasps don't die after they sting you, right?

No, they don't. If they did, it'd almost be worth it.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

13:54 / 15.12.04

Wasps will just sting for a laugh.

13:57 / 15.12.04

When we were kids my mate caught wasps in his hands, was the bravest thing I'd ever seen.

A wasp hid in my sisters slipper once and stung her on the toe..proving that they are evil and hang around waiting to hurt people.

14:00 / 15.12.04

Wasps will sting you because they can, and because they enjoy your pain. Other insects play by the rules but no, not wasps. I'm still reeling from the revelation that, even after they're dead, they find a vindictive suicide-bomber way to fuck you up. They are the true Axis of Evil.

And yes, bees are lovely.

14:01 / 15.12.04

Ganesh, the first 5 threads in Conversation have all been started by you. Slow day?

14:06 / 15.12.04

Ganesh, the first 5 threads in Conversation have all been started by you. Slow day?

Home day, nowt to do but loathe wasps.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

14:18 / 15.12.04

I like those big fat roundish bees. They used to come around and hang out with me while I mowed the lawn, back in the day.

Do those guys even have stingers? Could they successfully battle a wasp, if they met in an alley in Bangkok? Are there any flying insects that are a match for a big wasp one on one?

15:04 / 15.12.04

There was a time when I would have agreed with Ganesh about the evil that is the English wasp. But then I travelled through central Africa for several months. Trust me, when you've been attacked by insects that appear to belong in the Jurrassic period, you come to appreciate how harmless our own little species is...

15:07 / 15.12.04

My first night alone after I had moved away from home, I pulled back my duvet to find a wasp had tucked itself up in my bed, intending to keep me company. The university prospectus came in useful to aid the flight of the wasp out the window.

Mainly, I tend to run away. Wasp stings hurt.

15:17 / 15.12.04

That's the thing, Squirmelia: the Common (Evil) English Wasp is sneakier than any number of African monster-beasties. It's actually worse when it's not battering itself pointlessly against glass; when it's not flying, you can't hear it and, as often as not, you can't see it. It's lying in wait for tender, vulnerable, stingable bare flesh...

One of the worst of my wasp encounters took place when I had to drive home from work, and the vicious little bastard was sitting in the boot of the bloody car, inside a bag. Knowing the car had a manual gearbox, it carefully stung me in the soft space between my fourth and fifth fingers, so half my hand swelled up like fat pink sausages. Driving home, every gear-change was agony.

With me, it really is a fight-or-flight response, and I tend, usually, toward the former. It's me or them. If they're not dead, they might come back and terrorise me. I'm the Wesley Snipes-enacted Blade of wasps. Perhaps I am part-wasp.

15:18 / 15.12.04

sax: It would have to be rats

You would not have wanted to be in our (old, crumbly) house earlier this year, when we had a load of rats come to stay. Can't decide whether the highlight was finding three of them playing in the lounge, or when partner walked in to kitchen and found himself face to face with big grey one sitting in grill pan......mmmm. Our old deaf partially sighted dog and old deaf toothless cat were absolutey no help, and no amount of disinfecting and removing of tiny crumbs made any difference. Problem was solved when people next door moved out, and took all their pizza boxes, take away cartons etc. with them. It got so bad that before I'd go downstairs to loo in night I'd have to turn all the lights on and sing.

15:30 / 15.12.04

Spiiiiders. Urgh. Like Ganesh with his wasps, I go into hyper-adrenaline fight mode until they're dead and squashed to mush. Loomis is trying to train me out of this murderous terror but he only gets so long to carry them outside and take them to a new home or ... they get it.
I'm really looking forward to going to Sydney later this year.

15:34 / 15.12.04

Oooh. Mosquitos are much worse than wasps.

Wasps might occasionally need swatting, but I think the mosquito species is more deserving of complete and utter annihilation. And I’m normally happy to live and let live. But, ugh! mosquitos. Evil fuckers.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

15:40 / 15.12.04

Wasps, spiders, snakes, and all other manner of creepy-crawly things have never really bothered me. I have never been stung by a wasp that I wasn't intentionally provoking.

If you were inclined to accept the existence of a benign Creator, which petty vilenesses would cause you to reconsider?

Britney Spears

trouser the trouserian

16:04 / 15.12.04

I'm with Ganesh on this wasps ....aaargh! I've even got off trains where there's been a wasp buzzing around - you know you can just tell its working its way down the carriage looking for someone to harass. Camping this summer was a nightmare - wasps everywhere - couldn't take a swig out of a can or bite into a butty without checking it first. And all around me smiley pagan people voicing the theory that if you talk to them gently and tell them to 'leave' then they will - and they do - but then come back two minutes later with a load of mates.
After two days of ducking every five seconds, I managed to calm down and just sort of ignore them.

Snakes, scorpions, spiders & big fuck-off beetles don't bother me.

D'you have wasp-attack nightmares, Ganesh?

16:52 / 15.12.04

My friend, when he was a wee guy, kicked the bin round the back of his house because it had a wasp bike in it. They didn't take to kindly to this. Not only did they gang up on him but the smart little bastards stung him three times on the neck in exactly the same place making him pass out.

But then his dad went out and set fire to the bin.
That'll learn 'em.

17:42 / 15.12.04

.........I've never been stung by a wasp or a bee in my life, luckily.

I think one of the main factors in this is that I never waff at them, even if one comes buzzing and virtually lands on my face. (which happened not long ago) This makes them mad, and that's why people mostly get stung. Of course I know that sometimes they just sting you for no reason, but I think it's best if you just back out of the way of them if they do come right upto you. (like I had to do with the one nearly landing on my face, it hovered about 1cm from my forehead for about 5 seconds then I backed off)

And yes, I'll probably get stung for this. I love them though, just like any other animal/insect etc. Maybe they can sense frustration and negative energy coming from you and that's why they sting, bad vides and all.

17:52 / 15.12.04

My problem with wasps developed when one of the little shits got under the tongue of my football boot mid-game, and stung my foot repeatedly. It really really hurt, and the mark only really went away a year or two ago, and it happened about 15 years ago.

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