yeowtch!

[chronovore]

I nearly made it to the 40 year mark without suffering a bee sting. I'll be 40 the day-after-tomorrow, and YESTERDAY I was trying to remove a type of yellowjacket from within my house where my 2 year old boy is, to outside where my neighbors were walking over to see what I was doing. With a pair of canvas pants wrapped improvisationally around my hands, I pressed the bee against the screen door but the screen had too much "give" in it to squish it. I got the beast's legs pinched between my fingers, opened the screen door and was trying to figure out if I should throw the shorts down and run for it, leaving it to sting my neighbors, or how to squish the thing - I looked down, and its abdomen was thrashing about, needle extending and retracting, questing like some blind, deadly worm -- and then it shoved the needle straight through the denim and into my thumb.

That is some surprising shit. It felt like the needle went all the way to my first knuckle. I screamed and scared the hell out of my neighbors. Then I started sucking on my thumb, hoping to get the poison out. Then I started hoping I wasn't allergic, because I've never been stung before. I didn't die, so I'm not allergic; I was seriously euphoric for a bit, because I've never known if I was allergic to bees or not.

Anyhow, today it feels like I burned my thumb; it's throbbing and a little painful, but mostly feels like some odd internal pressure is built-up and can't release.

Bee stings aren't nearly as bad as I thought; not that I'm signing up for more, mind you...

Edit: Sass via benchilada

Comments

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

The worst stinging I ever got was delivered by about 200 yellow jackets in Northern Minnesota, hours from any hospital.

Needless to say, I could not sleep that night. Had some fascinating hallucinations all night long, too, vivid and enduring.

I lived. I guess I'm not deathly allergic, either.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Good.

God.

You might have /developed/ an allergy from that many bee stings. What the FUCK were you doing to get that reaction? Did someone convince you that "hive tipping" was a great prank?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Well, a friend and I were hiking in the woods on a small mountain (yes, northern Minnesota has 'em), and I brushed against a tree. It felt at first as if I had brushed up against a spiky branch; I mean, it was a pine tree after all. So I looked to see what was up and saw that it was a huge hive that I had bumped and my legs were becoming coated with the yellow-and-black cloud that was emerging from said hive.

I learned that I could run about 60mph downhill with 10-yard strides as I raced away from the remaining cloud, whapping at my legs to knock off the critters.

We got back to camp about a mile away free of hornets and I told my dad about it. He decided that if I wasn't already dead, I must not be allergic, so there was no point in driving hours to a hospital and ruining the trip.

Could not sleep at all that night, heart pounding, sweating, and hallucinating. I saw the most fascinating thing in the corner of the tent where my friend and I were trying to sleep: It was about the size of a small dog, but with short legs, long spiky fur (quills?), glowing red eyes, and a long point snout filled with chrysknife teeth. I could look off to the sides and it would not move. I could close my eyes and viola! As soon as I opened them, there it was. And it would sort of smile when I did things like that.

It sat in the corner of the tent all night. Eventually, due to my vivid description, my friend began to see it, too.

That was creeeeepy.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

YIKES!