We cleaned our screened porch Saturday. This is a spring ritual that is undertaken only after the surrounding loblolly pines have divested themselves fully of their greenish-yellow pollen. A two-week dust storm of lemon-lime Kool-Aid leaves the world covered in a pervasive neon powder. Your eyes feel like you walked through a sandstorm, and you live life in a yellow haze, but the loblolly species will survive for another year. Chances are you will be pulling them up like weeds in the summer. But I digress. Billy Bob wrestles the furniture off the porch to be hosed down and scrubbed for summer duty. The leaf blower clears most of the pollen out through the screens. Then I come out with the Big Gun: the central vacuum system powered by a jet engine mounted in the garage.
No particle of dust, no iota of pollen, no trespassing arachnid can withstand the power of this vacuum. When we first had it installed, we entertained ourselves for hours watching the dirt dance before the powerful beater bar before being drawn, inexorably, into the mighty vortex of irresistible suction. This household duty eventually returned to its mundane routine, but when defending myself from invading insects, I still enjoy the power of capturing the enemy remotely with my patented two-wand extension! Such satisfaction! Again, I digress. With my magic wand (and hose) I was able to remove nearly every remnant of pollen from the floor and frame of our porch, and using the aforementioned double-wand, even cleared the rafters. Spider webs and winter's detritus disappeared into its mighty maw. I cut the engine and paused to enjoy my handiwork.
A residual, low-pitched buzzing sound teased my ear. Had I failed to completely turn off the system? No. Had a hungry hummingbird, growing impatient, braved the gauntlet of human activity to reach the sweet nectar on the deck? No. Then I spotted the source. Not one, not two, but three bellicose buzzers, their rotund black bodies laboriously hovering near the roof of the porch, their tiny wings straining to maneuver for landing. The dreaded carpenter bee. The behemoth of bees. Zeppelins of destruction, they have drilled a dozen holes into the eaves. And they were back. Like the swallows of Capistrano, they return to the eaves of our porch and drill their giant holes into the wood. They squeeze their corpulent bug bodies into the holes to lay their fat little eggs. But not today. Not on my watch.
I alerted Billy Bob to the presence of the enemy. We had tried before to swat at them, but they exist in a different dimension, able to move through time at will and remain just out of our reach. We knew no spray would deter them. But they had picked the wrong time. We were there, and we had the Big Gun. These elephantine bees are persistent, but they are slow. We might have a chance. I passed the wand through the screened door to Billy Bob. The bees hovered just over his head, trying to gain purchase on the eave. Billy Bob turned on the vacuum and pointed the wand at the first bee. It hovered in mid-air, just beyond the end, weaving and bobbing in a drunken dance against the pull. But its tiny wings could not save that tubby buzzer. We heard a click as he began his warp-speed trip through the walls of the house on his way to the canister of the damned. Billy Bob met my gaze with a sly smile as he pointed at the second bee. You have stayed too long at the fair, my friend. The wand again danced through the air. At first unsteady, the bee easily danced away. But Billy Bob tightened his grip on the wand and CLICK. Two down, one to go. Failing to heed the warning cries of his late friends before their demise, bee #3 hovered nearby. He was an easy target for Billy Bob, who now skillfully wielded the wand like the sword Excalibur. Victory.
Hours later, from upstairs, I could hear the familiar zip of the vacuum hose being dragged from its lair. I came downstairs to find my husband contentedly reading the paper on the screened porch. At his feet lay the sword Excalibur. Billy Bob had battled another bee. And won.
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