Buzz Kill

This is the kind of story that if any of my ex-boyfriends happened to stumble across, they'd be happy things didn't work out between us. Because I've become a stranger person than I ever used to hint to be in my dating years. There's a confidence that comes with being married, causing you to care a little less about what other people think of you. Which I guess is why married people start acting weird -- because they can. And, let's face it, your true colors can only stay muffled for so long.

My quirk? Paranoia. Almost to the point of drastically interfering with everyday life. But luckily I have irrational ways to cope with my irrational paranoia.

Like, for example, my paranoia of a burglar/murderer/homeless man living in the crawl space under the stairs. Harry Potter style. Eek. I feel vulnerable telling the possible burglars, murderers and homeless men of this great hiding spot in my house. But I'll assume that's just my paranoia acting up again.

So how do I prevent myself from hyperventilating every time I have to walk by the closet door? I created a really cheap security system. Jeff hates it, but if it keeps me sane during my time home alone, it's staying.

A couple days ago, I became aware of the hornet infestation that was occurring on the side of our house. Hundreds of hornets were all clustering together in an attempt to break through our wall and turn our home into their royal nest. Okay, so they were just building a nest on the side of our house, but there were a lot of them.

They had to die. I wasn't going to be the next victim of a killer wasp attack. I've seen it in the movies. It happens.

As soon as Jeff got home from work I handed him the wasp spray. I begged him to put a bee net on and have a kiddie pool filled up in case he needed to jump in for safety once the wasps took revenge. He rolled his eyes and sprayed the intruders dead in one swift shot.

My hero.

We both kept going outside to survey the damage and count the casualties. Twenty-something. Tragic day in the wasp world.

We went out to eat and then when we came back, Jeff played with Eli while I went out to water the garden.

I felt so free to have a safe backyard again. Eli and I love the backyard. It's what gets us through the 6 o'clock hour every evening. As I was putting the hose away, I thought I should spray the hornets down the cracks of the cement since Eli has recently developed a fascination with bugs, and wasps -- dead or alive -- weren't the kind of bugs I wanted him experimenting with.

The cement was hornet free and victory was mine.

I went inside to hear Jeff and Eli playing so happily together. I took advantage of the few extra minutes I had to empty the dishwasher and clean up the havoc Eli had wreaked upon the house that day.

I put my hair behind my ear as I bent down to pick up a sock in Eli's room. I felt something weird.

In the time it took me to realize there was something weird buried in my hair to dig it out and throw it on the ground, my paranoid brain assumed the worst, "WASP!"

Without even looking in my hand to see what I had fished out, I threw it on the ground and ran away hyperventilating and screaming, "Oh my gosh!!! WASP!! Ew! Ew! Wasp!!!! Oh my gosh!"

Now, half of me didn't REALLY think there would be a wasp tangled up in the middle of my hair. But half of me REALLY did think it felt like a wasp. But I often mistake lint for spiders, shadows for ghosts and loud noises for gunshots, so I'm not even one to trust my first paranoid impression.

I hesitantly inched towards the thing on the floor that was once peacefully nestled in my hair. As I got closer, I saw it wiggling around. Victory for the wasp.

It was Jeff's worst nightmare. One of my paranoid panic attacks was not in vain. My worst case scenario had actually come true. There was, in fact, a hornet in my hair for an undetermined amount of time. I screamed for a half hour and then ran to the shower.

Now that I'm clean and likely hornet free, I'm looking at this whole experience as a blessing in disguise. Now Jeff can't be mad when he trips over suitcase security systems. My paranoia has been justified. Sometimes the worst case scenario does happen. So I'll continue living as though all my biggest fears are about to come true.