Lately I’ve been paying some attention to my long-neglected balcony. I really don’t spend enough time out there, and it’s probably because it’s filthy most of the time. (And also because a huge spider lives in one of the brick columns and I’m convinced he’s going to pounce on my face and suck my brain out through my eye sockets if I hang out there too much.) I love all my smoker friends, but they make a fucking mess with their butts and their boxes and their plastic wrappers strewn everywhere. I swept up and threw away months and months of accumulated detritus, emptied the ashes out all my flowerpots, and set to knocking down the pest nests that were under construction. (Except for the dirt dobbers’ nests; once when I was a kind, I saw my dad knock down a dirt dobber’s nest in the garage and the resulting rain of dead spiders from within helped solidify my cripplingly stupid arachnophobia. So, uh, I am going to have to formulate a plan before I knock down those damn things on my tiny balcony where the only place to run screaming is over the ledge and onto the unforgiving bricks many many feet below.)
I felt a little bad when I aimed my can of floral-scented Raid at the wasp working diligently on this nest, and I felt even worse as I watched his body writhe as he died from my blast of poison. But here’s the thing: I also feel really bad when I get stung by flying demon-faced insects. And relocating a wasp’s nest isn’t exactly … prudent. So, well, what can you do? Sorry, little wasp family that will never be. Let’s just consider this payback for that time one of your distant cousins stung me on my pinky toe through my jellies when I was a little kid. That shit hurt, dude.