Be Careful
Zedd, 11/05/02
The nights are getting colder around Camp No Friends, and as the frost makes its first yearly appearance on the windows of the lodge, I am reminded of a story from long ago, during my first season at camp. It was late in the year, perhaps early or mid-October. The leaves were turning, and many campers took advantage of the last few warm afternoons to stroll through the grounds and admire the mosaics in the trees.
On one particularly sunny afternoon, after the first frost, nearly everyone was outside venturing here and there. I was dodging through the trees tossing a ball back and forth with Tike. We came into a clearing and Tike pointed high up in an oak tree. As my gaze swept up the magnificent shade tree, I spied the source of Tike’s interest, a large gray wasp’s nest.
Tike started to climb the tree, and I asked him what he was up to. “I’ve been looking for one of these,” he said. “I think it would look great in the lodge above the grand fireplace.” I asked him what he would do about the wasps that were in the nest and he said that the frost would have killed them, which was good, because it looked to be inhabited by white-faced wasps, particularly large and nasty members of the wasp nation.
Soon, he reached up and deftly snapped the branch, carrying the nest-laden staff down with him. Once he reached the ground, he shook the nest vigorously, and a few dead wasps fell out, huge, with their tiny white masks. Off to the lodge, we headed, and the branch was soon mounted proudly above the hearth.
As the sun went down, the lodge filled up, and dinner was served. As I finished my last bite of stew, a slight buzz was heard and several screams rang out as a very alive wasp landed in the middle of the apple pie and several more circled amongst the rafters. The room emptied quicker than a tin full of LobaGirl’s tangerine Altoids.
I won’t describe how Tike got that nest out of there, but, suffice to say, he did not survive unscathed.
The moral of this tale: a dead wasp and a cold wasp look more alike than you think.