Bees in a Car

Much worse than snakes on a plane, I assure you.  I swear, anytime I am having a good day a bee winds up in my fucking car.  Three recent incidents come to mind.

Driving Down Overland Trail

I was innocently cruising down Overland on my way to the park with the dogs on a warm, sunny, delightful day.  I was listening to bluegrass of some kind, and the wind was whipping my hair in the most pleasant way.  Suddenly something made a thunk! sound as it hit my doorframe, then smacked me painfully in the forehead.  It felt sharp, I swear, like a shard of glass flew into my face.  Disoriented, I flinched and rubbed my head, then glanced around in my car to see what had just violated my dreamy afternoon.  That’s when I spotted it.  I glanced down and saw between my legs on the seat there was a FUCKING WASP.  The little shit was writhing in stupidity, no doubt wondering how it could be such an imbocile as to wind up in my car, and whom it could exact revenge upon.  I violently swerved my car to the side of the road and threw my door open, only to slam it shut as quickly as possible when a SEMI TRUCK flew past me.  Almost took my fucking door and my arm with it.  Fucking bee, you will pay for this! I thought to myself as I hovered as close to the ceiling of my Subaru as possible, watching the little bastard slowly come back to consciousness.  Finally, after what seemed like days of hovering, the road was clear and I hopped out of my car (without touching the seat, stealth I am) and swiped the bastard out of my car with an index card I had jotted some directions down on.  The fucker found his flight once more as I swiped him out and he buzzed off, as I jumped back into my car and rolled up the window.  Crisis narrowly averted.

On the Way to An Agility Trial

6 something in the morning is never a good time for me, but I force myself to face this hour on a regular basis because Agility people seem to think this is necessary.    So I was on my way to Castle Rock for a 3 glorious days of dog agility, and I saw something yellowish out of the corner of my eye.  My reflexes are rather slow at this ungodly hour, so I looked around briefly before being satisfied that it was my tired imagination.  No such luck.  I was going at least 75 mph down the interstate at this point, and I saw it.  The yellow striped bastard from hell flew right across my line of vision, causing me to swerve my car, panic, hit the buttons of all four windows at once, and–hyperventilating–cruised with all four windows down (and it is cold at that hour, mind you) for a good few minutes.  I had not seen the evil flying beast for the past mile or so, and I stupidly rolled the windows back up, silly me to think I was safe.  Suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, it was back, and with a vengeance.  It did not appreciate my attempt to suck it out into oblivion.  It flew at me this time, and I, being the sly person I am, hit the auto button on my window while pinning my head back to the headrest, and it flashed past my face and out into the morning air.  Crisis, once again, narrowly averted. 

Today, Driving to Work from Lunch

Just when I was beginning to enjoy my life I stopped at a traffic light on my way home and caught the glimmer of something sinister and yellow out of the corner of my eye.  There it was, perched like a waiting alligator in the watering hole, ready to chomp Bambi at any second (in this scenario I am Bambi).  I glance frantically around, NOTHING to swat it with, and I am reminded of Queen Latifah’s voice telling Dakota Fanning “Don’t swat. Whatever you do, don’t ever swat,” anyway, so all I can do is wait, frozen, for it to leave.  If I flick it with my fingers (shudder, the closeness) it will probably fly straight at me and sting my Bambi face.  Rolling up my window is no use, it is strategically placed so that it would land on the inside of the glass.  YEARS pass as I wait for this light, just hoping that when I do put my foot on the gas it will fly OUTSIDE and not in, as the stupid creatures are inclined to do.  Finally, after that agonizing 30 seconds or so, a truck flies past me and seemingly sweeps the yellow devil off with it, never to be seen again.  I immediately roll my window up as the light turns green and I begin to breathe again.  Crisis oh-so-narrowly averted. 

The common theme here is the close proximity to bee-related disaster.  I am certain I can’t remain so lucky for long.

Teen Fantasty Novels–The New Meal Ticket

Stephenie Meyer is one rich mommy who started writing–and kept writing–because she liked it.  She had fun escaping into the land of Forks, Washington and all of its rain, vampires, and metaphor-packed teen romance.  Perhaps she enjoyed it as much as the Twilighters do now that the books are out there on the shelf.  She sold her little hobby story and became a freakin’ millionaire.  The end.  Wait, what did I miss?  Nothing! Cassandra Claire just pumped out a trilogy with several Twilighty elements (sparky teen romance being one, though Claire’s books are a little more raw in this department–not quite as metaphorical) and is sitting pretty on the New York Times bestseller list.  It would be ridiculous not to mention J.K. Rowling’s multi-billion dollar Hogwarts empire.  A lot of writers are out there doing well, you say, so why do I mention these few?  The common elements: young people and fantastical themes.  Let me just say it like it is: I enjoy these books just as much as the next hardworking, stress-packed individual seeking escapism, and I’m downright jealous of the success these women are enjoying.  I know it is not without a price–writing is WORK, after all.  Editors, publishers, agents, the world of writing is nothing if not tedious at times–but I love writing and would love for fiction to be my main source of income, and get to train dogs (oops there I go mentioning dogs in my non-dog-musings blog) as a hobbyish profession.  I even wrote a teen fantasty novel when I was in my teens–15ish if I remember correctly.  I have yet to find it, I think it’s on a dusty floppy disk somewhere, but I hope it’s as great as I once believed.  It does sing of Claire’s world in eerie ways (I called the werewolves lycanthropes too, since they are referred to as that in some historical accounts, and I’m pretty sure my main wolfie man was named Luke), and I know it is missing the romance portion that seems to be the selling point in a lot of the bestsellers of this genre.  But if I dig it up, I’m certain I can re-write and jump back on this bandwagon of writing up fantasty worlds where teens can escape the monotony and stress of their daily lives.  Then maybe I, too, can make a cameo in the much-awaited film release of my novel, and watch with excitement as kids dressed up like my characters swarm midnight release parties at Barnes and Noble.  Ahhh, dreams.