On insects and instability

I have hurt myself. Not seriously, merely bruising, and that mostly to my pride, but I have hurt myself.

Some of you may have been aware that a wasp was building a nest within the holy place contained between our patio door and the screen door without. (Speaks volumes for the quality of said screen; it's supposed to keep insects out!) That wasp was killed when I destroyed the nest with chemical warfare. However, today I saw a new wasp of the same type.

It was in the living room.

As you can imagine, this was far from ideal, especially as neither cat wished to help in the destroying of it. Now, to set the scene... at the Eastern end of our living room, the LA and I have a large (almost 5 feet by six feet) picture window, immediately adjacent to which is the big entertainment centre in which the TV sits, and above which by about 18 inches is the arch window. See, we have a so-called vaulted ceiling; this means that there's basically no attic space above the living room. The arch window is semicircular and the same width as the picture window; its sill is at a rough guess about nine feet up. The picture window's (narrow) sill is about 18 inches up.

The wasp was investigating the arched window for possibilities of exit. It was finding none. Yours truly, mildly freaked out by the wasp, went over and grabbed a magazine, rolled it in the approved wasp-killing manner, and then used the entertainment centre to climb onto the picture window's sill. Then I managed to grab the arched window's sill, and edged across (did I mention the was was at the far end?) until I could reach the wasp. Then, I had at it, and landed a stunning blow.

The wasp fell.

I shrieked a little and fell too, then immediately got up and hammered the wasp into nothingness with the magazine I was still gripping. Then I went and got a paper towel, gathered the fragments of wasp, and disposed of them. That was when the pain hit, and now I feel such a fool...

Neither cat wished to aid me once the wasp had fallen. I suppose if they'd moved I'd have seen that they were laughing...

However, the moral of the tale? When you have cats, the best insecticide is a rolled-up newspaper or magazine. Cats aren't harmed by the lingering effects of THAT when you use it to kill an insect!