Because of the high gas prices, I'm trying my best to save what gas I have already. My biggest sacrifice has been not turning on the A/C and just driving with the driver's side window rolled down. It hasn't been too bad...but yesterday it almost killed me!

I was driving on Circle over the Circle Bridge when something big & yellow zipped through my open window right in front of my face. I heard a THUNK and a rustle when whatever it was hit the passenger window and landed on the bag I had laying in the passenger seat. I looked over and didn't see anything...obviously it had landed underneath the bag or on the side of the seat. I figured if it were anything alive it would have already been up and flying around. Or hopping - I actually thought it was a giant grasshopper.

Now anything "alive" would be bad...I'm terrified of insects of any kind and to have one in my car while I'm driving during rush hour traffic would be a calamity! I kept glancing over and not seeing anything. At the next stoplight, I moved my purse carefully....nothing. At the stoplight after that, I gently pulled back a corner of the bag and let out a screech followed by a terrified whimper. Laying, dazed but alive, on my seat was a giant fuzzy bumblebee. I'm more afraid of bees than I am of spiders so this was a tragedy of the highest order. I was actually crying...what if he came to and started flying about? I would wreck for sure!

Then I started to think...what if he had hit me in the head or face when he zoomed in? It would have meant certain death for me - a heart attack coupled with me driving my car off the Circle Bridge while freaking out. It reminded me of that Far Side cartoon years & years ago where the 2 aliens are leaning against a tree with the smoking wreckage of their space craft lay behind them and the villagers coming up the hill with their torches & pitchforks. The one alien's single eye at the end of a tentacle was big-eyed and scared and his buddy says, "I can't believe it! One lousy little bee gets inside and you freak out!" I had that hanging on my mirror for years because that alien could be me.

When I got to work (driving the rest of the way pressed as far against the driver's door as I could), I ran inside & got Morris, a co-worker of mine. I asked him if he would dispose of the bee for me and he agreed, going out & scooping him up in a coffee cup before tossing him in the bushes. He said his little legs were wiggling while he was in the cup. It had probably been only minutes before he came to and attacked me! Luckily, I survived.

Labels: bugs

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