I was 12 and it was late fall in Northern Michigan. I was trailing my father around the outside of my childhood home, a brick rancher hopelessly trapped in the 1950s. He was rattling off various odds and ends he expected me to take care of the following day in regards to winterizing and tidying up. I had nothing to write with and had already lost track of the list of tasks somewhere around the pump house, but continued to quietly nod anyway. It was mostly a one-way affair. Until we came around to the garage.
He stopped, me, head down, nearly running into him, and pointed up wordlessly. I obediently swiveled my head straining to determine what I was looking at before he felt the need to ask and my not having an answer aggravated him.
At first, I saw nothing other than the soffit under the edge of the roof protruding over the garage door, but then I noticed a small grey ball nestled into the peak.
“Wasps?”
“Yep. Tomorrow I’m going to need you to knock that nest down and crush it.”
“Aren’t they going to come out and sting me?”
“Too cold. They’ll be slow and dumb.”
“Can’t… can’t we just move them?”
He stared at me for a long second or two, perhaps puzzling yet again how I had come from him, before simply turning and moving on as if I hadn’t asked my last question. I shuffled after him putting aside my discomfort with my execution orders.
I had stacked the firewood, replaced the bulb in the pump house and just finished sweeping out the garage. I knew I was forgetting stuff, but couldn’t for the life of me remember everything he had said. It was then, standing there with the broom, that I glanced up and saw the wasps’ nest. Right. That.
I looked at the broomstick in my hands and decided to steel up and just ‘get on with it’ as he often said. Holding the broom just above the brush, I reached up with the tip and pressed it against the side of the nest.
It immediately and entirely popped free dropping to the cement at my feet.
At first I stood there in surprise at how unexpectedly easy that was. Realizing my next move, I swallowed and levered one foot over the nest and… stopped.
Why? If they’re slow and dumb, why can’t I move them?
I stood that way long enough for my shin to start burning with the effort. I put my foot down.
Next to the nest.
Some rummaging revealed a dustpan and I carefully swept the nest into the pan and meandered out into the yard, looking for somewhere safe to deposit them. I settled on the crook of a tree some 50 yards (~50m) from the house. Far enough.
I put away the tools and walked into the house. I plopped down on the couch with my hands in the pocket of my hoody.
Although I couldn’t see how’d he ever find out, I was anxious about defying him. It was rarely a pleasant experience. At the same time I was deeply relieved at sparing the nest. What was the big deal anyway? They weren’t hurting anything. Why did they have to go in the first place? I resolved to say something later that night, tell him what I-
“OWWWW!”
Pain exploded at the nape of my neck and I reflexively stood and felt something slide down my back under my shirt. Reaching back to grasp at the sensation, new miniature explosions of pain blossomed along my spine. I fell back onto the couch, instinctively trying to crush the offender under my weight.
Unfortunately, the couch did not provide a surface rigid enough to get this done and a new eruption of pain erupted on left shoulder blade.
Desperate, I rolled off the couch onto my knees and pulled off my shirt and hoody and tossed it out onto the floor. Taking a moment to gather myself, I stood up, walked over and stomped on my clothes repeatedly.
It was while I was standing there shirtless in the living room, breathing heavily and in pain, staring with tear blurred vision down at my wadded up shirt and hoody, that the irony hit me.
I resolved then and there that he’d never get to know.