Death of a wasp

I killed a wasp today.  I had just washed my dogs bedding and was putting it into the clothes drier when I noticed some clumps of fur.  So I pulled the wet bedding back out of the drier when a wasp came out with it.  How a wasp got into a clothes drier that I had been using for the last several hours was not a question that came into my mind.  Instead I quickly jumped back, the primal fear of a six year old who had been stung by a wasp flooded into to me.  The emotions of children are not blunted by reason and experience and the fears we gain as a child are with us for the rest of our lives.

The wasp flew about the ceiling, its evil black form a menace I could not abide.  So with the bedding still in hand I swung at it, knocking it to the floor of the garage.  It still moved so I hit it again and again.  On the third hit the wasp clung to the bedding, sending me into still more frantic swings.  Finally, the wasp lay on the floor, but still twitched.  In my stocking feet I dare not stomp on it.  Quickly searching about I grabbed an empty box and began hammering the wasp, until it was just a broken lump of goo.  But the menace still remained for I had been told that even dead a wasp can sting you.  Grabbing a paper towel out of the kitchen I wiped up the remains and dumped it into the garbage.

As fear and adrenaline slowly ebbed from my mind I began to think.  Through no fault of its own I had killed it.  The wasp had been about its daily business and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Its small life snuffed out because of my fear.

How often in our lives have we lashed out because we think someone might hurt us.