Out of the Cave

Today is Friday. When I can avoid it--though this is not often, I don't leave my neighborhood on Fridays. Perhaps it is just a throwback perception from my time in L.A., but I feel that even here in Tally, the traffic is at the same time slower and scarier on Fridays, especially by afternoon.

So today I mostly tooled around our underlit and undercleaned house, answering emails and reading. At one point I went outside to pick up the mail. I then sat on the front steps to leaf through it, thinking "Look at me, I'm outside!"

The moment I sat, a very large cartoon ant scurried around my foot toward less occupied pastures. Of course, he was not really a cartoon ant, but really, he looked as fake as one. He was about four times the size of the largest ant I've seen heretofore, and he was fire engine red, with a black stripe. He was so fake-looking, I didn't even flinch when he strode right by me.

Twenty seconds later, other, more innocuous looking insects started lightly stinging my legs. I waited to make sure I was not imagining this. I wasn't. I went back inside: Total estimated outside exposure: approximately 90 seconds.



I have googled the strange looking ant, and found he is actually not an ant, but a wasp, and not a he but a she (the females do not have wings). And the nickname for said insect is "cow-killer," not because it could actually kill a cow, because when it stings you it "hurts enough to kill a cow."