I kept telling Brad I heard what sounded like bees or wasps buzzing in the two downstairs bathrooms. He suggested it might be the florescent light bulbs. But it wasn’t florescent light bulbs that climbed out of the air vent and into our bathroom Thanksgiving week, while I was in the process of drying my hair. I ran out, closing the door behind me, ran upstairs to collect the bug spray which was upstairs because Em declared last week that a big green bug the size of her whole hand ran across her arm while she was playing computer games (I’m more inclined to believe she’d been on the computer too long, but I sprayed her room anyway, as it was the only way to get her out of ours). So, back to that morning. I ran downstairs with the insecticide, and sprayed the wasps that were flying around the bathroom. Several friends joined them, and got the same welcome. Then I sprayed the vent to the exhaust fan thoroughly. That’s where they came from, and it was disturbing. Wings, hind-ends, legs, sticking out on all sides as wasps on the other side of the vent swarmed and milled about. I doused them good. Bug spray dripped all over the bathmats and everything else, so I warned Brad not to go in there without shoes, and that we needed to wash the bathmats before using them again.

The gray shadow cat, Pandy, heard. And perhaps that is why for the very first time, the contrary thing pulled open the bathroom door, went inside, and took a nap on the bathmat. Brad found her there, and promptly escorted her out. A few minutes after, he observed her stick her leg under the door and pull it open. That is one strong cat. He interfered with her plans to wallow any further in insecticide, but she is persistent as well as strong. In order to spare Em from having her cat go the way of the pesky wasps, I stopped what I was doing and washed the bathmats.

Every couple of days, another wasp or two squeezed through the vent (also squeezing past the insecticide) only to join the others. So, every few days, I vacuumed them out of the garden tub to prevent it from becoming a wasp graveyard. I grew weary of the routine, so I dug out the painter’s tape and used half the roll to completely encase that vent and everything contained within.

And still there were wasps! I had no idea where they were coming from now, and still don’t. I was beginning to feel desperate.

Why is it that it often takes desperation in order for me to pray for help? Maybe because I think I can handle everything on my own. Or that I should. Maybe I still struggle with the determination to be self-sufficient. Whatever the case, I did pray. It’s been a week since the last wasp showed up in the house, and I am grateful!

This isn’t the first time we’ve had an infestation of wasps. If I can reduce the file size of the video reenactment Emily made, I’ll include it in this post. She was a lot younger then than she is now, and even younger than that when she came to the rescue and rid the house of the invading hornet. I was proud of her for that, and the video.

 Success! How adorable is she? What an actress! How mad she’s going to be when she finds out I posted this!

What isn’t in the video, is that I saw the ball fly past the bedroom door, where I was vacuuming, and into the sliding glass door. I was appalled, to say the least. I still had no idea there was a hornet in the  house. I thought she was choosing a rather destructive way to while away the time as she waited for me to get done and listen to her.

So I went out into the living room, and then I saw the hornet lying on the floor, writhing. So I sucked it up in the vacuum, and that was that. I did the same thing about twenty years ago when the log fell out of the fireplace and live coals flew all over the carpet. Although in that instance, the live coals melted the vacuum canister, it smelled like burned dog hair every time I vacuumed after that, and it was too late to save the carpet. But it sucked the life out of the fire, and thanks to choosing a high quality wool berber, all we lost was the carpet in front of the fireplace. Poor Fox was stressed beyond belief by the fire alarm, though. I thought I never would get him back in the house. Brad’s evil cat, Misty (who I more appropriately dubbed “The Boobins,” because it just fit her), sat right in front of the burning carpet, her eyes dancing in the flames.

I also called her Lucy. Make of that what you will.

“Failure to Engage” is now… 299 pages! That’s reason to celebrate. It’s also reason to believe it may reach the length of “Terms of Engagement,” book 1 in the series by the same name. There are twenty more writing days until Christmas. We’ll see if I can pull this off and get it done by then.

In the meantime, happy reading!