Ryan vs. Nature

The fall brings with it so many exciting features. Football season, cooler weather, getting to finally wear my winter clothes again. Perhaps the greatest of all of these though, is the compelling "last lawn mow" of the season. The summer is full of unholy heat which requires constant watering which leads to mowing twice a week! Oh, but when October creeps in, the whole house can sense that the grass will be shorn but one more time and then the lawn mower will rustfully hibernate until April, maybe even May. The moment came this Monday. It was a holiday. The temperature was in the mid-70s. One last sweaty hurrah in the front and back yard and I could return to my fantasies of being rich enough to hire other people to cut my grass.
I filled up the mower with last bit of gas from the can (which is like a supreme OCD high - last mow of the year with the last bit of gas in the can? I almost fainted) and marched out of the garage. I walked the perimeter, searching for cat turds and wind-strewn garbage when I noticed the flower bed in front of our house. It looked like a jungle! I knew I would have to weed it before I began mowing so I grabbed a trash can and began to rip up months of overgrown grass and runaway weeds. I had made great progress when I arrived at the third little bush type plant and plunged my hands in to extract dead leaves and floral intruders. Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting next to my right knee. I assumed I had poked myself with one of the dead leaves; they become very hard and stabby when they die and I have often drawn blood when carelessly grabbing a handful in the past. This sting however, became more intense until it reached doused-in-napalm sensations. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this:



The actual hornet was about fifty times bigger and it also pelted me with profanities! It must have just grazed me too, as a stinger that size probably would have impaled me. The winged brute turned on me for another attack when suddenly an enormous tiger leapt from the roof and pounced on the grisly insect! Sadly, the tiger was no match as the hornet stung out his eye.



I managed to hobble into the house where I writhed on the kitchen floor, massaging my owie with several ice cubes. After I had sufficiently numbed the pain I headed back out to the bush of doom, armed with a giant can of hornet poison. I could not fail, I had a brilliant plan. I would slowly approach the bush and then kick it real hard and douse all the unwelcome visitors with foamy death as they emerged from their base. In theory, it was a plan envied by military strategists everywhere. In reality, it fell apart almost immediately. My kicking of the stingy bush only enraged the savage horde more, and they poured out of the plant like a great and terrible cloud of barb wire. My girlish scream did not frighten them and I just barely managed to limp back into the safety of the garage. The last mow would have to wait and it was back to the drawing board for a new plan to combat the hornets. Perhaps I could try the diplomatic approach...