School of Hard Knocks

I feel like my life is on a swing in that I can be knocked off at any time. Knocked off is the operative word. I have had two close calls with stinging insects in the last week and I hope it is not any indication of what the summer will be like for me. I haven't been stung by a bee in four years and my skin disease, Mastocytosis, is enjoying the time off. Knock on wood. I attract bees like a honey magnet and the freak encounters mess with my fragile psyche. If I were a superhero I would call bees my arch enemy and be done with it. The Bee Man of Blackwood, as Ripley's Believe It or Not has dubbed me, is anything but an ordinary life kept on guard.

Last Saturday, I went out with friends to play tennis. I took timeout to lean against the metal post of a tennis net. A red wasp started to buzz my face. I had no food, don't wear cologne, and I wasn't bothering the insect. It remained annoyed and darting. It would not relent until I moved backwards to stand against a chain link fence. After I obliged, I noticed that the wasp flew into the slither of a crack atop the metal post. Wasps had nested inside the warm confines of the metal post. My hand had been covering the entrance to the nest. With wasps coming and going, I do not know why I was not stung.

While doing repairs to our wood deck, I had another close call with bees. Knock on wood. I had just removed the rope lighting from underneath the overhang and gave a deck plank a whack of the claw hammer. Knock on wood. I reached my hand underneath and tried to pry the planking off. Carelessness caught me without work gloves. So much for a life on guard! Without protective gloves, I felt a foreign papery substance in the corner of the planking. Wait a minute the coarse feel of paper can mean only one thing. A bee's nest! I jumped backwards and landed on my butt about five feet behind where I took up shop. With splinter's wedged in my buttocks, I crawled forward to investigate my fears. Not only did I put my hand on a bee's nest but the nest was inhabited by a mindful yellow jacket. I have no idea why the bugger didn't sting me when I all but crumbled its nest.

I should be in a hospital emergency room right now. I could be dead. I am alive for a reason. Life is a bunch of hard knocks. Knock on wood.

Who said all hands on deck?