Bees (June 2007)

Don't shoo a bee out the window of your car while merging on the expressway. It blows back in.
Last Sunday, Mother's Day, we were leaving one family to visit the other. Riley was sitting behind me in nothing but his underwear. He ran through the sprinkler at Aunt Emily's house (unauthorized, of course) and his pants were soaking wet. As we were driving up the ramp to 131, I noticed a bee on my window, and quickly rolled the window down to shoo it out.
Within seconds Riley started screaming, and Mike swerved (on the on ramp) and yelled very loudly "It's on his leg!", which totally freaked Ry out more than he already was. I turned around to see the bee crawling inches from his underwear at the top his leg. It was like a moment frozen in time- Riley hysterical, Mike swerving, the boys trying to swat it, All I could do is stare at the whole scene. Mike continued to drive onto the highway while we were all yelling and turning around, so I finally yelled above the commotion "PULL OVER!"
Riley unbuckled while Mike swerved off. Ry proceeded to club the bee to death with Tobey's baseball bat, which was conveniently sitting on the floor at his feet. Tears streaming down his face, I asked Riley where it stung him. He wiped his eyes and said "Nowhere- that was a close one! Good thing we brought the bat!"
After that we got back on the road, everyone laughing about the yelling and the bee.
We reminisced about other times we had bee encounters. The last one was last summer while fishing on the deck of Grand River Park in Georgetown. Tobey and Mike were standing together with lines in the water, and Ry was sitting with Bren at the other end, and I was opposite. Everyone but Ry had lines in the water. The must have been a wasps' nest under the deck railing, because Tobey leaned up against it and they swarmed on him. He started screaming and spun around with his pole, snagging Mike's shoulder with his hook and wrapping them together in the line. Mike's pole swung up, hit the rail, and the hook stuck in Tobey's foot while the top of his reel fell off into the lake. Lines and wasps and hooks were everywhere, and Bren & Ry ran off the deck screaming. I was frozen- it was like a wierd dream where you can't move. I actually felt like laughing because it looked quite humorous, but after a few seconds I sprang into action. Using Mike's leatherman tool I cut the lines and we all ran off the deck to pick hooks out of each other. Tobey got stung in his ear and on his nose, but the only thing we really lost was one reel (and maybe some dignity- when it was all over we noticed a family on nearby playground equipment staring at us).
Anyway, when we were all laughing about it in the car after Ry killed the bee, he said "Boy, I wish I had that bat that day were were fishing!"
So I guess the moral of the story is... Always keep a baseball bat with you in case you need to kill a bee.