What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

My mother deeded me this old house a year ago, not so much out of generosity as out of sheer necessity. Having suffered over 15 years of utter maintenance neglect, it was literally on the verge of collapsing (or would have at least demanded demolition, had the health department gotten a gander at it). She wasn't willing to take out a mortgage on it to get it fit for human habitation, so she deeded it to me, effectively leaving the responsibility of paying a mortgage payment to me.

The place was utterly overrun with every conceivable vermin, from an interesting variety of molds and mildew to rodents, groundhogs and an impressive assortment of purposeless insects. There was a hornet's condo in one corner of the house that should have been on the map -- it stood about 4' tall and 2' wide. The siding contractors who tore it down called them 'Japanese yellow jackets'. (Fortunately, I didn't end up having to pay for the many cans of wasp and hornet spray that they went through during the siding installation.) And as if there weren't enough vermin habitats inside and around the outside of the house, what had once been pasture had become a literal forest of poplars and underbrush that hid God-only-knows how many species of detestable creatures.

Within 3 months after I moved in and the dust had settled from the multitudes of major contracted home improvement projects, the mortgage money was gone and so were most of the wildlife abodes. The vermin would have to go elsewhere to declare squatter's rights -- the humans were reclaiming THIS territory. Needless to say, there are probably numerous wanted posters up in many hives and holes in the ground, with a reward for getting this human.

Now, with the background story out of the way, I've been watching an industrious colony of yellow jackets swarming a tiny opening in the new window framing for a couple of weeks now. In my foolish impatience, I actually sprayed the area in broad daylight the other day, but was unable to take good aim while dodging attacks and seemingly did very little good. There were a few carcasses to show for the attack, but the swarming continued. My intentions were to wait till nightfall at the next opportunity, take careful aim with a flashlight, and fill the hole with wasp and hornet spray, but like all good intentions, I kept forgetting until being reminded of their presence the next day. A few would find their way into the window through the screen, but didn’t get far, as the inside of the window was littered with dead bodies. Am not sure what took them out -- very likely one of the cats I suppose.

Tonight, I paid the ultimate price for that continued careless neglect. I was abruptly awakened a short time ago with the sensation that my toe was on fire. As the intensity of the pain steadily increased, I gave in to the disturbance and turned on the light to discover that one of the little yellow jacket demons had somehow made it into the window and down the hall to the sofa on which I had been sleeping (or TRYING to sleep). He had squirmed his way between my little toe and the toe next to it and then stung ME because he was feeling a squeeze?!@!

For anyone out there who may have a similar encounter in your future, note this home remedy...my mom's been swearing by it for years but I had my doubts as to whether it was really worth the bother. Now I can confidently testify that it DOES indeed work! Take just enough warm water to make a paste of a small amount of meat tenderizer and apply the paste directly to the sting as soon following the indiscretion as possible. Somehow, it is said to be able to draw out the poisons in stings and insect bites that causes the painful allergic reactions and swellings. Of course, my first order of business was to KILL the perpetrator of the crime, so there was a slight delay in treatment -- evidently not enough to cause any harm however. It took a good 10 minutes following the smearing on of the grainy paste, but sure enough, the pain left relatively quickly following the treatment!

So here I sit at 3:30 am typing away about this absurd encounter, needing to get up early in just a couple of hours to get ready to run my mother around town on some banking errands before returning to work after the long holiday weekend. I'm now finding it difficult to go back to sleep, for fear there may be a partner in crime somewhere nearby that I have yet been unable to locate. I did however, finally get around to filling that hole with stinging insect killer -- about 30 minutes ago.

But back to my initial question...what purpose on God's green earth does the existence of the yellow jacket serve? Can anyone help me here -- is there really a REASON these demonic creatures EXIST in the first place?!@#!%*!!!