How was my weekend?
Well, thanks for asking. Let me tell you… but first let me give you just a smidgen of backstory.
A little more than 2 years ago, whilst we were in the hospital for the birth of little man, some kids attempted to break into our garage. I say attempted because all they ended up doing was fucking up the doorjamb, and I said kids because an adult would have been able to pop the door tout suite. Since then we have not really used the garage access door because it is difficult to open and close and there is a big opening that we drove our car through with which we can enter and exit.
Enough backstory… This weekend we were to have an open house on Sunday afternoon. There are some things that we wanted to get accomplished prior to actually having tons of people running amok through our house, and on top of the open house, we had a showing scheduled from 10 to 11 on Sunday morning as well. So Saturday was going to be all about getting the house ready, at least that is what we thought. Friday we got calls from our realty company and 3 showings were set up for the day on Saturday. There goes Saturday’s daytime ability to get the little things done around the house to make it show better. Simple little things like taking the growing things out of the garage’s gutters.
Anyway… fast forward to Saturday evening. We are attempting to get little man asleep. He is falling asleep just wonderfully and his eyes are closed…. He is drifting… drifting… drifting… THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. He’s awake now, but still tired. The sound and light show seem to be more or less not bothering him after about 10 minutes. So, again he started drifting off again…. drifting… drifting, and there he was, our little angle asleep. It was a light sleep until the power went out and freaked his shit out. Came back on… went off… came back on… went off… came back on, and then went off. This multiple power outage seemed to awake the little one out of his light slumber and freak his shit out even more.
Here begins out night of playing with the little one instead of cleaning the house. The power was out until 12:30 that night, and the little one was up until around 10:30. Needless to say, the cleaning did not happen Saturday evening as well.
Sunday morning arrives. We are cleaning like mad folk. Little man is intent on playing like a made man as well. These 2 cross purposes do not mix well. We know that we have to get out of the house by 9:50 for the showing that has been scheduled at 10. One of the tasks that needs to be taken care of prior to showing a house is the removal of trash. A house that smells like rotten vegetables tends not to show well.
So, I take the trash out to the trash can out back. On my way back in, I notice that the door jamb on the garage access door is a bit more askew than normal. (remember the backstory, it comes in to play from here on) As I walk past the rumpled door jamb, I quickly shove the thing back into place. Within second s of touching the door jamb, I get a searing stab of pain in my left elbow-ish area. I look down, and to my astonishment, there is a yellow jacket there (not this yellow jacket, or this yellow jacket, or even this yellow jacket, but this yellow jacket) stinging the holy hell out of my arm. I flick the bastard off my arm and start heading for the house. I get on the back porch and feel the fire of a yellow jacket sting on my right thumb near the palm of my hand. I shake the bastard off my hand and have to do some evasive maneuvers to keep from getting a third sting, and slipped on the rain slicked deck. One of my left quads erupted into pain, as I slipped. Pretty sure that is a pulled muscle. It will hurt more later. I head into the house trying not to curse like a sailor.
Trying not to curse like a sailor when in great deals of pain tends to come out in oddly pain induced grunts and yelling, lots of pursed lips and whistling. One should not curse like a sailor in the house of a parroting 2 year old. “Squawk, shit fuck damn, squawk!”
So whilst I am dancing around my dance of pain, the phone rings and Wifey’s mom is on the phone. Turns out that one of her cats died overnight. She was not willing to remove the body of the cat and needed us to come over and help with the cat’s ultimate destination. Of course we will help. It is our job to help. It is Sunday morning at around 9:30 at this point. There is not a single darn vet open at the moment. Luckily we were able to find a vet tech who was watering and walking the dogs at a local vet and ask them what we should do to take care of Henry’s (the cat’s) remains. Luckily, the vet was there as well, and $50 later that issue was taken care of. It is 10:05, someone is most likely in our house. My stings still hurt, but not with the white hot heat of a thousand suns, but my leg is starting to ache more.
Now we start heading to an indoor playground for little man… for he is bored with the dead animal disposal process. On our way to a local mall we get a call from the realty office asking if we would mind having a showing at 12:15 to 1:15. We wonder why the person cannot wait a bit and go through the open house, but we are looking to sell the place, so we say, “Sure why not.”
The showings go well, the open house goes well, but we were not able to do any of the minor cleaning that we needed to do. More importantly, I was not able to try and take care of the yellow jacket issue prior to having tons of litigious strangers walking in my back yard. FYI No one was stung.
That evening, while the little one was getting his bath, I went out with my handy can of Yellow Jacket death and a broom. They seemed like a good pairing of tools at the time. I poked at the doorjamb with the broom, holding the spray can of insect killing (+4 against yellow jackets and hornets for the gamers out there) and nothing happened. I poked harder, still nothing. I opened the garage door expecting a devil swarm to encompass me, but still nothing. There were no more yellow jackets.
It seems that the door jamb looked in worse shape than it had the day before, significantly worse. It seems that someone during the power outage, or right after the power outage, had attempted to re-break into the garage. I imagine that, again, it was kids because they did not make it in.
Let me reconstruct a timeline for everyone. We had not used the door in 2+ years. Saturday night there was another attempt at getting into the garage to an already weakened entry point. Sunday morning I was stung by a lone yellow jacket. Here’s where my supposition comes in. I think that during the past 2 years some yellow jackets found that door jamb to be a great place for a home. Then, under the cover of darkness, some folk attempted to gain entry into our garage through a door we have not used in 2 years where yellow jackets have taken up residence. The people did not get into the garage due to the stingy and flying insects that issued forth from the disturbed entry point. The colony started the move, since the doorjamb was no longer a safe neighborhood. I was stung by one of the few remaining yellow jackets. It brings a tear to my eye thinking that somebody trying to break into my garage got the everliving crap stung out of them. Makes the 2 stings I endured and the pulled thigh muscle somehow worth it.
So, how was your weekend?
To recap:
Our garage is mainly meant for storage
We are showing the house a hell of a lot
Yellow Jackets are the spawn of the devil.
God rest ye, Henry
At least it was not hornets
Some kid is currently still in pain from multiple yellow jacket stings… tee hee
I had the luxury of daylight to see what was causing me pain
We just got an offer on the place, but it low, and we like money… you do the math
Well, thanks for asking. Let me tell you… but first let me give you just a smidgen of backstory.
A little more than 2 years ago, whilst we were in the hospital for the birth of little man, some kids attempted to break into our garage. I say attempted because all they ended up doing was fucking up the doorjamb, and I said kids because an adult would have been able to pop the door tout suite. Since then we have not really used the garage access door because it is difficult to open and close and there is a big opening that we drove our car through with which we can enter and exit.
Enough backstory… This weekend we were to have an open house on Sunday afternoon. There are some things that we wanted to get accomplished prior to actually having tons of people running amok through our house, and on top of the open house, we had a showing scheduled from 10 to 11 on Sunday morning as well. So Saturday was going to be all about getting the house ready, at least that is what we thought. Friday we got calls from our realty company and 3 showings were set up for the day on Saturday. There goes Saturday’s daytime ability to get the little things done around the house to make it show better. Simple little things like taking the growing things out of the garage’s gutters.
Anyway… fast forward to Saturday evening. We are attempting to get little man asleep. He is falling asleep just wonderfully and his eyes are closed…. He is drifting… drifting… drifting… THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. He’s awake now, but still tired. The sound and light show seem to be more or less not bothering him after about 10 minutes. So, again he started drifting off again…. drifting… drifting, and there he was, our little angle asleep. It was a light sleep until the power went out and freaked his shit out. Came back on… went off… came back on… went off… came back on, and then went off. This multiple power outage seemed to awake the little one out of his light slumber and freak his shit out even more.
Here begins out night of playing with the little one instead of cleaning the house. The power was out until 12:30 that night, and the little one was up until around 10:30. Needless to say, the cleaning did not happen Saturday evening as well.
Sunday morning arrives. We are cleaning like mad folk. Little man is intent on playing like a made man as well. These 2 cross purposes do not mix well. We know that we have to get out of the house by 9:50 for the showing that has been scheduled at 10. One of the tasks that needs to be taken care of prior to showing a house is the removal of trash. A house that smells like rotten vegetables tends not to show well.
So, I take the trash out to the trash can out back. On my way back in, I notice that the door jamb on the garage access door is a bit more askew than normal. (remember the backstory, it comes in to play from here on) As I walk past the rumpled door jamb, I quickly shove the thing back into place. Within second s of touching the door jamb, I get a searing stab of pain in my left elbow-ish area. I look down, and to my astonishment, there is a yellow jacket there (not this yellow jacket, or this yellow jacket, or even this yellow jacket, but this yellow jacket) stinging the holy hell out of my arm. I flick the bastard off my arm and start heading for the house. I get on the back porch and feel the fire of a yellow jacket sting on my right thumb near the palm of my hand. I shake the bastard off my hand and have to do some evasive maneuvers to keep from getting a third sting, and slipped on the rain slicked deck. One of my left quads erupted into pain, as I slipped. Pretty sure that is a pulled muscle. It will hurt more later. I head into the house trying not to curse like a sailor.
Trying not to curse like a sailor when in great deals of pain tends to come out in oddly pain induced grunts and yelling, lots of pursed lips and whistling. One should not curse like a sailor in the house of a parroting 2 year old. “Squawk, shit fuck damn, squawk!”
So whilst I am dancing around my dance of pain, the phone rings and Wifey’s mom is on the phone. Turns out that one of her cats died overnight. She was not willing to remove the body of the cat and needed us to come over and help with the cat’s ultimate destination. Of course we will help. It is our job to help. It is Sunday morning at around 9:30 at this point. There is not a single darn vet open at the moment. Luckily we were able to find a vet tech who was watering and walking the dogs at a local vet and ask them what we should do to take care of Henry’s (the cat’s) remains. Luckily, the vet was there as well, and $50 later that issue was taken care of. It is 10:05, someone is most likely in our house. My stings still hurt, but not with the white hot heat of a thousand suns, but my leg is starting to ache more.
Now we start heading to an indoor playground for little man… for he is bored with the dead animal disposal process. On our way to a local mall we get a call from the realty office asking if we would mind having a showing at 12:15 to 1:15. We wonder why the person cannot wait a bit and go through the open house, but we are looking to sell the place, so we say, “Sure why not.”
The showings go well, the open house goes well, but we were not able to do any of the minor cleaning that we needed to do. More importantly, I was not able to try and take care of the yellow jacket issue prior to having tons of litigious strangers walking in my back yard. FYI No one was stung.
That evening, while the little one was getting his bath, I went out with my handy can of Yellow Jacket death and a broom. They seemed like a good pairing of tools at the time. I poked at the doorjamb with the broom, holding the spray can of insect killing (+4 against yellow jackets and hornets for the gamers out there) and nothing happened. I poked harder, still nothing. I opened the garage door expecting a devil swarm to encompass me, but still nothing. There were no more yellow jackets.
It seems that the door jamb looked in worse shape than it had the day before, significantly worse. It seems that someone during the power outage, or right after the power outage, had attempted to re-break into the garage. I imagine that, again, it was kids because they did not make it in.
Let me reconstruct a timeline for everyone. We had not used the door in 2+ years. Saturday night there was another attempt at getting into the garage to an already weakened entry point. Sunday morning I was stung by a lone yellow jacket. Here’s where my supposition comes in. I think that during the past 2 years some yellow jackets found that door jamb to be a great place for a home. Then, under the cover of darkness, some folk attempted to gain entry into our garage through a door we have not used in 2 years where yellow jackets have taken up residence. The people did not get into the garage due to the stingy and flying insects that issued forth from the disturbed entry point. The colony started the move, since the doorjamb was no longer a safe neighborhood. I was stung by one of the few remaining yellow jackets. It brings a tear to my eye thinking that somebody trying to break into my garage got the everliving crap stung out of them. Makes the 2 stings I endured and the pulled thigh muscle somehow worth it.
So, how was your weekend?
To recap:
Our garage is mainly meant for storage
We are showing the house a hell of a lot
Yellow Jackets are the spawn of the devil.
God rest ye, Henry
At least it was not hornets
Some kid is currently still in pain from multiple yellow jacket stings… tee hee
I had the luxury of daylight to see what was causing me pain
We just got an offer on the place, but it low, and we like money… you do the math