Ow ow ow ow ow

So here was the plan for today: finish mowing the lawn here, which I started yesterday (I completely mowed and weed-whacked the other house's lawn yesterday); take my infected computer up to Best Buy for repair and cleaning by the "Geek Squad" (does anyone else find that whole advertising campaign more than a little demeaning?); and then return the cordless phone battery I bought from Radio Shack yesterday and see if I can exchange it for the correct one.

So far things have not gone as planned.

I started mowing the lawn all right; I did a decent job on the northeast quadrant yesterday evening, and so I continued into the southeast quadrant and then the south edge. The southeast quadrant has a lot of obstacles - Adirondack chairs, a wooden bench, a garden hose, clothespoles, a bird feeder on a shepherd's crook, a rosebush, a garden swing - but I maneuvered around them just fine. The south edge has a long garden in the middle of it, which is less of an obstacle and more a sort of break in the lawn. It also has blueberry bushes, a Rhododendron, a recently transplanted Forsythia, a random squash vine that popped up out of the compost around the Forsythia, a compost pile, and a nest of Yellowjackets.

The Yellowjacket nest is something new. I only just found out about it today.

So there I was, mowing the lawn between the Rhododendron and the compost pile. I was wearing shorts, a long-sleeved Henley with the sleeves pushed up to my elbows, socks, and boots. I felt a picking in my left forearm, not as bad as the picking of the raspberry thorns the other day, but still annoying. I pulled up my sleeve and looked. There was something sticking out of my arm - like a thorn, but straight and thin, with a small disc at one end and a tiny sphere as a cap. That's odd, I thought, that looks like a stinger. I rolled up my sleeve the rest of the way and found a tiny Yellowjacket in the folds.

I refocused my eyes and saw a swarm of Yellowjackets around the reel of the lawnmower.

Shit shit shit shit shit, I thought as I hustled towards the back porch. I could see things swarming around me in my peripheral vision. I felt a sting in my left ankle, then in my right.

I got on the porch and kicked off my boots. I opened the door and said to my mom, "Please get me some Benadryl."

I tore off the Henley and then my socks. I found one Yellowjacket in my left boot, and promptly crushed it - it was probably a sterile soldier, so it had no genetic heritage to pass on, so I felt less bad about snuffing out the entire history of life then and there as represented by this living thing.

My mom brought out the Benadryl - well, pseudo-Benadryl, from Sam's Club - and I took three. She also gave me some analgesic gel to put on the stings. How I managed to get away with only three stings, I have no idea.

So the lawnmower is still sitting in the middle of a Yellowjacket nest. I may go out later to retrieve it, after first donning longer, thicker clothing. My arm doesn't hurt anymore - I just looked, and the welt has dissipated into a larger, vague reddish reason. My ankles are still stinging, and I hope that the stingers didn't work their way into the skin.

Of course, in times like this I think of what Whim went through, and I realize what a pussy I am for thinking that this hurts. I also do some Zen limb detachment, and that helps a bit.

So will I finish the lawn? Will I get stung some more while trying to retrieve the lawnmower? Or will I just go out and do my errands while under the influence of three 25mg pseudo-Benadryl pills? Stay tuned!