Paper Wasp

I was attacked while driving home from my local university the other day. A stow-away wasp had lain in wait, for days perhaps, divining the opportune moment to strike. And it did.

I dodged the initial sortie without leaving the road altogether. All four windows immediately came down, but the wasp instinctively made for the rear compartment of my car, avoiding the usually successful vacuum-trap altogether. It was obviously a veteran of such sophomoric maneuvers.

As my rear window is fixed, I simply eyed the wasp from my mirror, anticipating any attempt on it’s part to make for the back of my neck, but it never did. Instead, it merely flit about the rear window—a small shadow against the lined plane behind me.

And then it occurred to me: The rear defrost! Surely a little heat would coax the wasp forward to the windows, where a properly timed acceleration would send it back to its precious nature.

I clicked the button, and waited for the heat to build. Some minutes later, however, I was surprised to find that the wasp yet refused to exit the vehicle. Rather, my striped friend had begun jousting my rear window. Stinger recoiled time and again in futile attempts to inflict a fatal wound. The wasp simply didn’t realize the hopelessness of its own situation—just kept fighting, knee-jerk, against an advisory that, lacking life, could not be killed.

I turned off the defrost.

-mixtape

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Tags: Random, Paper, Wasp, Attack

~ by mixtape on July 19, 2007.