Grateful for a wasp sting? You must be mad!
Yesterday I was stung by one of those nasty paper wasps on the back of my left hand while I was weeding. Until then, I’d forgotten just how much they burned! And at the time, I couldn’t remember what my reaction was … do I get an allergic response? I had that moment of ‘eeekiness’ and then remembered back several years when mowing lawns my hand swooshed past a wasp nest and copped a couple of stings. I lived. Whew!!
The weeds I’m dealing to are really high and I knew there were wasps around – just not where and how many. I took my glove off and could hardly see anything to indicate I’d been stung, yet it burned like a hot needle. I figured I needed to get something on it so walked up to the house and pulled out my new ‘oily bible’ and looked up wasp stings. I had all of the ingredients bar one, so whipped up a wee potion and swabbed the tiny red dot. The pain subsided pretty quickly and I after a few minutes there was no swelling, no paind and hardly any dot – I was rapt.
Back on with the gloves and back into the weeds I went, this time, a little more carefully. I slowed right down, and kept my peripheral vision on high alert as I slowly pulled out one weed at a time and kept my eyes on the few wasps that were buzzing around me. There weren’t that many, maybe a dozen, however I wanted to know if I was dealing with a gargantuan nest or a small one. Eventually I found a tiny wee nest on the ground. As I pulled back the foliage I took the Beatles advice and ‘let it be’ so that it could be dealt to later that evening when hubby got home to tell me where the wasp killing powder was.
The point of this story? Well, yesterday I was grateful for the wasp sting as it caused me to slow down and notice what I hadn’t noticed up until then … wasps. I could have stumbled on the nest and been stung multiple times, but that didn’t happen. Sometimes what we label as ‘bad’ or ‘bad luck’, can be a gift, a learning experience. Hence I thank the wasp for the warning.