Invasion of the Yellow Jackets

I was pet-sitting for my cousin recently while she was on a trip. I looked after her two cats, and had a grand adventure one day, which involved far more creatures than I had signed up for. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Not long after arriving, I saw a note posted by the door, saying that they were doing decking replacements a few days from now. Curiously enough, I didn't see anyone else taking their stuff off the patios. As the days passed, I saw no sign of workers, tools, or equipment.

About a week went by after the supposed date, and one morning, some men arrived and began tearing down a patio on the neighboring building. Uh-oh, I thought. Does that mean I need to remove the things from my cousin's patio?

I had just started eating a meal when there was a knock at the door. A man was there, asking if I could take the things off the deck, because they would be tearing it down.

"Oh, I saw a notice about that while back, but I hadn't seen anybody."

"Well, we took down the ones on the other apartment first. We're just getting to these."

The clock was ticking. I hurried out to the patio, where a jungle awaited me. Looking at one plant, which appeared to be a small tree in an enormous soil-filled pot, I decided I'd get that one out of the way first. I struggled with the thing, which was the approximate weight of a small anvil, before it finally occurred to my doofus brain to put my hand under it and then lift it over the ledge into the apartment. (The ledge from the patio to the dining room floor seemed to be a foot tall in that moment.)

With the ultra-heavy thing taken care of, I worked on the others. I ran back and forth with pots, flower boxes, little tables and stands, a folding chair, a broom, a large mat, and the contents of Mary Poppins' carpet bag. I knew she had a fair amount of plants on that little patio, but I never fully realized or appreciated the sheer number of items until that moment.

By the time I finished, the kitchen counter was mostly covered with pots. Flower boxes and even more pots were on the kitchen floor, and the super-heavy plant was by the sliding door (I had no desire to drag that heavy thing too far). Tables and stands were placed in the laundry room and main bathroom. But, at last, I had everything in.

I was standing in the kitchen, staring at the plants, when it happened. I noticed a lone yellow jacket. Perfect, I thought. There must have been one hanging out on one of the plants I brought in. Then I saw another one. Luckily, the wasps were sluggish from the cold weather they were exposed to, so it was a simple matter to kill them as they meandered across the floor.

But then more appeared. They kept showing up on the kitchen floor. I would kill them, and soon afterwards, more would show up. As an added bonus, at one point I thought I killed one, only to lift my shoe and see it take flight. Fearing it would come after me with a vengeance, I pelted across the apartment. There was no sign of pursuit, however, and I crept back into the battleground kitchen.

Meanwhile, the cats had wandered out from where they were, and looked around the kitchen and dining area, probably surprised to find how their environment had rapidly changed. They sniffed at plants and investigated their new living situation while I smashed the umpteenth wasp with my shoe.

Clearly, this wasn't just a wasp or two that happened to be hidden. It must have been a whole nest, probably one of the flower boxes. Meanwhile, one was crawling on a flower in one box, in no hurry to move to a place where I could easily crush it, and two had randomly shown up on the side of another box.

Something had to be done. I picked up a flower box, telling the yellow jacket not to fly off about five million times. I opened the front door, set the box on the landing, then went back for the other one. "Do not fly. Stay put. I'm going to take you outside. Don't go anywhere until I set this box down and close the door. Nice yellow jacket, good yellow jacket..." If a wasp had dared to take off while I was carrying the box, I probably would have screamed, panicked, and dropped the flower box on the floor. Or maybe my foot.

Muahaha!

Still, it didn't completely solve my problem. The two flower boxes were out of the apartment, but a few wasps had left their disturbed nest already. Two were on the kitchen window, and another was on the sliding glass door. They were warming up now, and had begun to fly.

One of the cats proved eager to help. "Don't do that!" I shouted as she batted at a wasp that was flying by the patio door. I shooed away the feline, then beat the unfortunate insect with a tennis shoe. Unfortunately, it proved not to be the one I sighted by the door earlier. There were still at least three left.

The wannabe wasp slayer. Though in this picture, she's more interested in a nap.

I didn't want to slam my shoe against the window, and the other had chosen to roost on a curtain, so I decided to leave those for later. I grabbed my food, which by now had been out for at least an hour and a half, and sat down to eat.

The wasps hadn't strayed far, and when I finished, the two annoyances were still on the kitchen window, and the lone annoyance was on the patio door. I brutally murdered the wasp on the door, then made my way to the window. Forget my qualms about beating against the glass. Those yellow jackets were going down. Once they were slain, I looked around carefully, hoping not to see any more.

With over ten wasps dead, and no signs of any others, I sat down on the couch to relax. For a while afterwards, I was cautiously looking around for signs of more wasps. The workers started tearing down the patio the following day (to the displeasure of the cats, who took refuge beneath my cousin's bed), and put up a platform for the new one.

The wasps proved to be completely gone, though I spent the remainder of my stay killing small flying insects and a few spiders. The railings for the new patio weren't up yet when I left, so the apartment remained a plant habitat. When my cousin came home, my aunt, who was helping bring the luggage in, remarked on how many plants my cousin owned. I admit, it didn't seem like as much when they were on the patio. Once I started hauling things in, they took over the kitchen.

So if you ever thought pet-sitting was always a simple, stress-free job, think again. Relaxing jobs don't involve two hours of wasp hunting, or carrying heavy plants into the house, or staring at the animals in fear they might have been stung. And then there's another place I pet-sit at, where a kitten was determined to destroy everything in her path. Sometimes pet-sitting involves unexpected adventures, and you get more than you bargained for. But hey, all in a day's work, right?