My friends, I am not a proud man.  Nor am I always the smartest of people.  Or the bravest.  Which is why I have to tell you of my amazing brush with death.  Or at the very least, my brush with almost potential pain.

I was putting away the laundry in our walk-in closet, when I heard an ominous buzzing coming from somewhere all too nearby.  I peered around.  I poked.  I checked behind the window blinds. And there they were: several…buzzing things. Black and yellow and elongated and evil as can be, glaring at me and suggesting, in their strange buzzing way, that they were here for me and all that is mine.  Had I maintained my house defenses properly, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But the window was slightly open at the bottom for ventilation, and somewhat ajar at the top, where the storm window provided inadequate protection. These suckers? Were one bold move away from invading my sanctum.

Like a rational person, I reacted calmly,  shutting the top and bottom parts of the window. Except somehow I erred. These three terrorists of the insect world were suddenly in the closet with me. Crawling on the window. Buzzing madly.  Giving me the stinkeye. They buzzed.  I backed up and considered my options.

And then my reinforcements arrived.  Molly, the fierce orange cat of doom.  Virgil, the little black cat of not-so-doom. Mighty hunters, both of them. I knew they’d eagerly take on my foes…but I feared for their safety.  Molly’s smart but not sensible. Virgil’s enthusiastic, but has the foresight of a drunken frat boy. The things buzzed.  The cats went “Hmmmm.”  I went “Oh God.”

And then the wasps–for that’s what they were, let’s not linger on the mystery– made the first move. One flew through the air, in what was clearly an attack pattern.  I screamed, dove for cover. It flew in my direction.  I flew right out of the closet, and was halfway through the bedroom before I came to rest, hiding behind the bed.  Clearly, my primordial instincts had kicked in.  In “fight or flight,” I was “flight.”

I considered my options.  We have an all-natural flying insect killer, made from some kind of lemongrass or mint or essence of nature.  My beloved wife says it smells like “a Thai whorehouse.”  No, she won’t explain how she knows what one smells like, and it’s really starting to worry me.  That trip to Vegas last year?  I’m on to you, my love….  But anyway, I  went downstairs and got the spray.  I marched upstairs with it.  I readied myself.  I girded my loins. I put on pants.  That sort of thing.

I then threw myself into the closet, screaming “DEATH BY WHOREHOUSE” as I liberally sprayed the window and the wasps.  They buzzed.  The cats fled.  The wasps died. The closet…reeked. I stood my ground and watched as my opponents choked, fell, and stopped twitching.  And then I cleaned up.

My cats are disgusted with me.  My wife won’t even talk to me now that the bedroom smells of eau de lemongrass oil. I only found two wasp corpses out of the original three. For all I know, the last one is still out there, half-dead and crazed, mutated from a toxic overdose of lemongrass oil. I’ll be sleeping down the hall in the guest room with one eye open for a while to come.

But I won.  Didn’t I?