For months my friend has been recovering from surgery. I called to ask how she was.
“Well, after weeks of not being able to wash the dishes without resting, the doctor decided I needed something more than Geritol. With this new prescription, I can vacuum the floor without fainting. I haven’t had this much energy in months,” she said.
After a winter of being housebound and too weak to care I missed visiting with my neighbors. Hoping they might come over to chat while I was working., I went outside to work on setting flowers over the grave of our 12 year-old dog who died last year. The flowers are a compromise, my sons wanted us to put a headstone over her grave in the back yard.
We’d ordered sacks of topsoil to fill in where the dirt settled over her grave. When the company delivered the dirt, I only had enough energy to show the delivery man where to stack it. As he unloaded the first sack, I saw a rip in it. I asked him to tape it before leaving.
I finally felt well enough to go outside and start emptying the dirt out of the sacks. When I went to open the one that had been taped, I couldn’t. I kept hoping a neighbor would stop by so I would have an excuse to leave it alone, but no one came. I struggled and sweated trying to open that sack and it did not budge.
But I sure budged when a bee flew into my hair. I reached up and tried to brush it aside. It stayed there buzzing angrily, I got scared. But, I’ll bet the neighbors thought I got religion; I ran around, waving my arms and hollering, trying to brush off the bee.
When the bee finally left my hair, I dashed into the house with the bee following. I barely had the door shut when the bee began beating its body against the screen door whining and buzzing to be let in so it could finish me off.
I didn’t want that bee to visit. I grabbed the Raid and sprayed it through the screen, letting the bee know it was not welcomed.
After it was dead, I opened the door, kicked its body off the porch and went back to the taped sack.
I saw the neighbors; they were inside their house, watching me again as I wrestled with that tape. Tired and exasperated, I yanked extra hard and the sack exploded.
I thought a dirt clod flew up and hit me on the shoulder. I reached up to brush it off before I realized a rat was on me. I hit that rat so hard and so fast that it flew clear across the yard.
I figure it got in the sack from the bottom side. I was terrified another one was lurking in the dirt. Grabbing the shovel I attacked. Dirt flew everywhere until nothing was left. No dirt and not critters.
By that time I was shaking so hard that I had to go inside to rest. I didn’t stop shaking for half an hour. And I was nearly faint as before, so maybe this prescription isn’t working either.
I’m not sure it was worth it to try to please my sons. I was attacked by a bee. I killed it. I go outside only to have a rat attack me. The neighbors stayed behind their door all day – and now they probably think my long recovery was because I have gone crazy, she concluded.
It’s nice to know that my friend is feeling so much better.