One of the unintended benefits of hoarding a lot of
ridiculous stuff, as my father loves to do, is the amazing number of
nooks, and/or crannies that are created in the process. Our property
was lousy with them, you couldn't swing a cat without knocking into
some nook or cranny. The upshot there was that there were a million
little places for a wasp to build a big papery nest. We would be
fiddle-farting around looking for something to do and stumble upon a
huge basketball sized nest of of the winged cusses, and the
afternoon's activities would be sorted. We would usually start the
extermination effort with a simple rock assault, anger the wasps and
make a hasty retreat. The other option was to be multiply stung. If
you ever are confronted with the run/multiply stung choice; go with
run, it is hands down the better option, true fact. Once they were
riled there was little option but to escalate the battle into
chemical warfare. We would gather rubbing alcohol, various solvents
and whatnot and make bombs out of them either by soaking a tightly
rolled rag and trowing it or filling balloons with it. Sometime if
your bomb missed you could still agitate them enough to see what was
thrown and go to sting it and spell their own doom. By far the best weapon in this periodic war was spray-paint. Our friends and us
would take it in turns to climb up close to the nest to be in the
periphery of their attack zone and wielding a pair of spray paint
cans wait for the Top Gun-ish dogfight to begin. The wasp would swing
in for an attack and the spray can warrior would try and intercept
the attacker with a stream of paint. If the wasp was hit she would be
changed into a little statue and be frozen in time as a little white
or blue or chrome monument to her bravery in war. After hours of this
there would be thousands of little statue-carcases and we would be
ready for the coup de grace. The
nest would be out of defenders and be ready to be torn down and
burned or stomped to bits. Now that we don't offer this fine service,
my father has to rely on the petrochemical industry to rid the yard
of these pests, I am aware that we used chemicals as well, but as
artists not heartless brutes. If you ever are confronted with the
option of spraying wasp killer on a nest or painting them into
statues, go with statues it is hands down the better option.
