Seducer of Nature

Bumble Bees this time of year are a little entertaining to watch. They are nearing the end of their life cycle and will sometimes in mid-flight fall to the ground dead. Last year while at the pool I witnessed three mid air bee deaths. It was the first time I had witnessed that before!

The bummer is that not all bees on the ground are dead right now. While at the pool last week, Katie found out the hard way when she picked up her fuzzy friend. It's a little sad that my one year old is quicker than I am. We both saw the bee at the same time and she picked it up before I could keep her from it and *sting* right on her index finger. She did not react at all. It was like it didn't happen. She screamed when I took fuzzy friend away, but not at getting stung. Her reaction was so low, that I began to doubt she got stung at all until I opened her hand and saw the stinger still pumping venom into her pointer finger.

In that moment I began to get a bit jealous. What luck she had. Granted no one wants to get stung, but stung on the finger is no big deal. When I get stung (by bee or jelly fish) it is cause for an embarrassing moment on top of the throbbing pain.

Remember belly shirts in the late 80's early 90's? Yeah! Awesome! And as an 8 year old I was rocking one while camping with my family. As I rode my bike at neck breaking speeds around the camp ground, I rode right into the back of a bee in flight. Due to the unfortunate nature of my shirt and lack of development, the stinger ran into my bare undeveloped chest. With two older brothers who where nothing but compassionate, the sudden swelling of my left breast for the day, made for quite the spectacle and I found myself hiding in the tent until the next morning.

A few short years later, I was gifted for my golden birthday (turning eleven was incredible) with a month away at my grandparents' house. At the time I lived in Seattle, so to have a month in California with my grandparents that had a pool outfitted with a water slide and diving bored, was the ultimate paradise! A week into my trip I had worked up enough courage to go down the slide head first into the water. It was a steep slide and I felt like I was the bravest girl there ever was. With the wind in my hair, I screamed with glee towards the water's surface. But instead of joy, I hit the water in searing pain. The screams of elation quickly turned to screams of torture. My crotch felt like it was on fire. I was so confused as to what I had possibly hit on a smooth slide that could cause that much pain. Once out of the pool I saw the pervert bee still stuck to the crotch of my swim suit, mystery solved. My grandfather came rushing out of the house to the sounds of my screeching asking what had happened. "I got stung! I got stung!" I yelled through my tears. He was ready to help but needed to know where I had been stung. How do you tell your grandfather you have been stung in your private parts? So I told him, "I've been stung in my special no no spot!"

"I'll get your grandmother."

Where I learned "special no no spot" is still unknown, but it was still mortifying as a preteen to have your grandmother pour and pat baking soda on that area.

Now we move to a high school humiliation. I was on a Mexico missions trip with my high school youth group where we spent a week in Mexico building a house for a family. On the way home we stopped at a beach in Mexico and were warned to shuffle our feet and keep an eye out for jelly fish that could be present in the water. About thirty minutes into enjoying the waves and fun it felt like someone spanked me with a paddle with tiny sharp tacks across my tush! Not just one side, but both cheeks were in searing pain. One of the female leaders intercepted me as I emerged form the water, again screeching in pain, and got me laying face down on a towel to start the necessary evils of relieving the pain of a jelly fish sting. A wall of my friends formed a circle around me as my swimsuit was hiked up my  rear end revealing whip like marks from the jelly fish tentacles on my now bare derrière and the baking soda cure was administered. My well intentioned youth pastor, wanting to capture fun and memorable moments from the trip, came by to see what all the commotion was about. A rolling video camera in hand. Thankfully, my humiliation did not make the final cut of the "Mexico Memories" video. Just the dance I performed with some girlfriends that is now just as embarrassing as my exposed body parts!

Upon hearing those stories, my girlfriend dubbed me the Seducer of Nature! It is a running joke in my circle, so much so, that as a gift for one of my personal showers when I was getting married I received a pair of underwear that read in crystals, "Special No No."

All that to say, a bee sting of the finger feels like stroke of luck in my opinion!