Thought I'd share this one I emailed to my mom and sisters from about 3 weeks ago:
So yesterday morning I
got up early to work out on our exercise bike. Before I could do that, I had to send a quick email.
As I was working on that, M.C got up and I saw saw a bug across the room that
looked suspiciously bee-like. As M.C. was checking it out for me, a
yellow-jacket flew past my face. I got worried since we hadn't left any windows
open the night before and there shouldn't be TWO in our house, right?
So I got up and went to check the windows in the living room. The windows
and walls were covered in yellow jackets. I don't mean like 25, I mean
hundreds. I started to panic and then noticed that our dining room (where I had
been sitting at the computer on the bar) was also covered in yellow jackets. I
sent M.C. to hide in the kids' rooms and make sure the little kids didn't come
out. I woke up Chris, begging him to help me. I think his eyes might have
popped out of his head just a little bit when he walked into the dining room.
He really panicked then and ran to the air conditioner he had brought up the day
before from the garage (because it's like 100 degrees down here this week)
thinking that maybe there was a nest in it.
I decided we didn't have time for investigations. I ran and put the
thickest sweats and sweatshirt on I could find, and started wacking them with a
book as fast as I could. I had no idea what else to do. Chris ran and grabbed
the 2 yellow jacket poison cans we had in the garage. As he got back upstairs I
got to tell him of my newest discovery. In the ceiling over the double front
windows in our living room was a round hole and yellow jackets were pouring out
of it from the attic. We both realized at the same time that we could NOT whack
every single one and survive the war ourselves. Chris started spraying so he
could get to the hole. He got stung about 3 times on the way on his head and
neck. Apparently they were fine with my hooded whacking, but they didn't like
the poisoning guy at all. So he emptied a can and then blocked the hole, then
emptied the 2nd can on the guys that were still left. We had yellow jackets
everywhere. The guys that hid out behind furniture during the war came out
gradually so we had to watch for them. It was complete insanity - like
something some twisted comedy movie writer would think up for Steve Martin to
act out (he'd have to put down his banjo though - you need both hands).
Chris' head swelled up so I poured vinegar on it and pumped him full of
some antihistimines and ibuprofen and gave him G.J.'s epipen since G.J. was late
for an appointment and I had to run out with him leaving Chris to man the watch
for more.
So the interesting things are that M.C. has asked me several times in the
last week about the scratching noise he was hearing when he was sitting on the
couch by the front windows. I heard it too, but thought maybe we had a mouse.
Pretty sure that our attic is full of yellow jackets...
Plus our bike is right next the windows that the yellow jackets were
filling. If I had managed to get on it without noticing them, I would have
been trapped!
The ONLY thing that saved us is that somehow they were all really calm.
Maybe God spoke to them or something to keep them from attacking us - but it was
eerie how calm they were. After Chris started spraying the poison, some angry,
non-calm jackets began flying in the dining room door on the other side of the
house that we had opened in case some wanted to fly out rather than being
smashed by my book. Those guys were ready to attack. If they had all been like
that, we might have had to use our fire ladder that lives in our closet upstairs
(that we bought for foster care licensing in WA and have never used), to get all
of us out while we decided what kind of pest hero guy to call. Someone with
some really thick protective gear and a solid plan.
Also - we bought
windows for the front of our house that are coming on Friday. We're going to
install them ourselves. I am SO thankful that this happened on Tuesday, just
days before we were going to cut into the wall where this gigantic nest is.
Chris would have been up on a monstrously high ladder with no preparation for
what would be coming at him. At least we are now prepared, and I have further confirmation that my teens are heavy sleepers since they slept through the whole thing and were surprised by our traumatized faces when they groggily came upstairs hours later...
