That’s a HUGE wasp and a HUGE spider! These are what phobic-I have to put up with in Australia… and I thought growing up in Africa was bad enough!
Contrary to this article saying they’re not, believe me – they ARE dangerous! I have been intimately involved with one…
‘The Paper Wasp’
One typically hot Australian morning, a good ten years ago, I heard the Council rubbish truck as it trundled up our typically suburban hill.
Even though mornings are just not my thing I realized my bin wasn’t standing to attention out the front like all the other smart town-house bins!
Horrors! So even though I was still half asleep, I grabbed a sin-covering gypsy skirt, pulled on a tank top and raced out the back door.
In one swift baton-passing movement, I grabbed the handle of my bin, lowered it to allow for rolling speed and raced headlong through the garage, down the driveway just as the truck pulled up next-door.
Two burly garbage men jumped off the side and stood watching in amusement as a familiar bin race began.
And they kept on watching even as the scene turned surreal when this strange and flustered woman started jumping over invisible hurdles, boobs bouncing and fluffing her skirts provocatively – right in front of them.
If they’d bothered to take a look at my face they’d know I wasn’t acting out of pleasure or invitation, but was in pain – I was being attacked repeatedly!
Ouch – ouch – ouch! With every stride toward the verge where my bin should be, something unseen painfully injected itself into me again and again.
On the first sting, I thought it was a bee – but they only hit once… Then I thought it must have been a spider – possibly a Red Back (I expected to faint at any moment – dying on my driveway dressed so casually was certainly not the way I wanted to be remembered)!
Finally I let go of the handle, surrendered the bin to their astonished care and jumped around ‘ooo-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ in a focussed, maniacal dance of release.
Perhaps the bemused bin men thought it was some new form of morning exercise?
No – I was trying to release whatever it was that was stinging me on my legs and bum.
I don’t think they were ‘morning people’ either because finally – eventually it dawned on them that I needed help.
So I really didn’t care, as these two burly, smelly and sweaty garbage men pulled at my skirt, flapped their hands around my thighs, then both ducked their heads under for a better look.
(Were my neighbours watching?)
Meanwhile I jumped around on the spot in what may have appeared to be ecstasy – gasping, yelling and moaning.
Though it only took seconds, it felt like forever until a mess of bright orange, inch-long body, yellow wings and long legs lost the fight and flight and crunched onto the ground.
In tears and smiling in relief; I think the two blokes were even more relieved than I was they hadn’t got stung by what they called a Paper Wasp.
It was only much later, as I lathered soothing creams onto the various areas of red, when I thought about the strangers getting more intimate with me than anyone had for many years.
And I thanked who ever my guardian angel was; in my frantic rush to get dressed, I had grabbed a pair of knickers!
:o))))))
Frances Macaulay Forde © 2009
My WA Writers blog shout-out on WOL.
2008 
2016
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