A Little Waspish
After being on the road most of last week, all I could think about yesterday was getting home. I dreamed of sleeping in our own bed, watching our old trees turn colors, cooking and eating comfort food.
And when I got home everything began as anticipated, starting with a divine night’s sleep. But this morning, when I walked across the bedroom floor, pain through the arch of my foot. I dismissed it as a twinge and started making the bed, but the pain got worse. Finally, I pulled off my sock and found a small sting mark on the bottom of my foot. My eyes followed my route, and there, in the doorway was a wasp corpse.
“You won,” Hiram got a tissue and picked up our former houseguest. “You got stung, but he’s dead.”
Funny how people romanticize the places they aren’t. Not once during the week long road trip did I think, “Gee, I don’t want to go home, because we have bugs.” Neither did I think about the upstairs bathroom being a total wreck, the empty refrigerator, the mound of of mail and papers needing attention, an overflowing email inbox, or all the research gathered during the trip that would require sorting, filing, and labeling.
And I certainly didn’t think a wasp would sting the bottom of my foot – even though my four previous wasp stings this spring and summer could be construed as literary foreshadowing – but I’m a real person, and real people don’t use those devices. Fictional characters do.
So today I’m feeling real.
A little prickly, a little waspish.
A little light-headed – maybe from the sting.
A little discombobulated by the mess on my desk.
A little overwhelmed.
A little paranoid of flying critters and debris on the floor.
A little foolish.
A little scatterbrained.
A little tired.
Totally inadequate for the tasks at hand.
And really, really glad to be home.
Wasps and all.
