I'm sure y'all have seen me mention the wasps that come in through our fireplace from time to time. They always seem to "attack" when Jason's not home and I'm TERRIFIED of them! (Of course if our chimney had some sort of screening over/around it then this wouldn't be such an issue I'm sure.)
Anyhow...tonight Jason decides to light a fire in there--the first one of the year! It was going fine and him & Drew were sitting in there watching it burn when he yelled for me to bring the fly swatter. I run in there with it and he points to the rock ledge in front of the fire place where one lone wasp was hobbling along. I went to swat it when all of the sudden it was like you see in old horror films where bats fly out of a cave--100's (and I am not exaggerating at all!) of wasps came flying out! The ceilings in that room are 22 feet high and it's open to the upstairs on either side of it. I was screaming and hopping around! Jason was running around swatting and yelling at me to get some spray. Drew was screaming and running around. I ran to the kitchen and got the spray and Jason starts aiming it towards the fireplace (where they are still pouring out of!). I started yelling at him that he "can't spray that in the house and definitely not into the fire!" but really what choice did we have.
I grabbed up Drew and ran her down the hall to her room and shut the door. She was screaming and crying but unharmed/unstung and it was safest for her to be closed up in there. I ran back in there and grabbed the other can of spray and started aiming! We sprayed until we ran out and then continued running and swatting! By that time the combination of running up & down the stairs and all around the house shutting doors (to contain them to the center/open rooms) and the hideous fumes put off I couldn't breathe, I was gagging and coughing, and my throat was on fire! I threw open the front door and ran out on the porch gagging and making all kinds of racket! (Good thing we live way out here by ourselves!) Once I got that all under control I ran back down the hall to Drew's room (yes! For some reason I insisted on running the whole time! LOL!) to check on her. The poor thing was sitting in the middle of her bed just quietly crying. I went over to her and she just kept saying "Daddy kill bug! Daddy kill it!" I calmed her down a little and ran back to the living room. Jason was still running and swatting. The ceiling (22 feet in the air) was dotted with wasps and more were flying around up there. A lot of the ones near the floor were hobbling around so I was able to kill a lot of them with a shoe.
After about 45 minutes of constant killing we thought we had gotten them all (we've since found a few but they were near death already) except one that was on the rock of the fireplace up near the ceiling. Jason started shooting at it with my BB gun (shoots plastic pellets) but was missing terribly and basically just bouncing little blue balls all over the house! LOL! Then he wadded up a dish towel and started tossing it towards it to get it to move. This went on FOREVER as he throws about as well as he shoots! LOL! He finally lured it down by throwing Drew's soccer ball at it (a soft small one)! Surprisingly nothing was broken in all this!
When we got all of them killed Jason went in to check on Drew and she was asleep! LOL! We've since woken her up and checked her all over and she's fine. I however spent about 20 minutes puking in the bathroom! I somehow made it 19 weeks without barfing, inhale a bit of wasp spray, and lose it all! I kept asking Jason if I would be OK and saying that I didn't want the baby to come out with wings and a stinger! LOL! I think I'm fine now--other than the fact that I'm sure I'll never be able to sleep! I'm not a fan of bugs and having 100s of them flying out at me all at one time just pretty much sends me over the edge! LOL!
Apparently every kind of wasp known to East Texas was in there! We killed huge red ones, black ones, little red ones with yellow stripes, black with yellow stripes, and the ones that look like their 2 body parts are connected with just a string!
While I don't suggest spraying wasp spray directly into a fire, it did not cause the giant fire ball one would expect from the warnings on the can! LOL! Neither of us were very impressed with the show! LOL! And you can believe that I will be paying ANY PRICE to get someone to climb up on the roof/chimney to put some sort of screening over it! (When we built this house we were turned down by 2 of the roofing companies here because of the steepness of it and then the chimney sticks up WAY above the highest peak! And the meth addict that built the fireplace & bricked everything apparently didn't find a screen necessary! UGH!)
And she's absolutely PERFECT!
