Waspish

My father once said that there is no problem in the world which can’t be sorted out with a 12 bore shot gun and half a pound of semtex. He was a wise man indeed. But it’s a bit of an extreme solution for a chipped fingernail.

Most women have a problem solving tool kit. And it doesn’t usually consist of much. It’s exactly the reason why DIY and hardware stores started reporting losses 2 years before the recent recession began. As more women have started to live alone it has become apparent that you don’t need a lathe, a Bosch drill, 2 tins of hammerite and an angle grinder to put up a curtain rail. A solid wedge heeled shoe, a pot of clear nail varnish and a metal nail file will solve most household conundrums.

The days of the power tool man is obsolete. However there are times in a girl’s life when she wants to be rescued, throw her hands up in the air and scream like a… well… girl. I just escaped an hour and a half long ordeal which involved me being trapped in the kitchen by a wasp. Not your common or garden weedy British wasp, which hovers politely near your picnic and seems to ask ‘excuse me old bean, mind if I have a nibble on your cup cake? I won’t be long, honest, sorry for the inconvienience.’ No these are hard core mentalist fundamentalist Turkish wasps. They’re as big as your thumb and they live in my extractor fan in my kitchen. (somewhere near the cockroach nest I suspect). I first encountered these things in Oman, where I saw the sting on my friends arm rise to half the size of a tennis ball. Getting jabbed by one of these things is no joke I can tell you.

So this menatalist wasp got into my living room and I was too frightened to go anywhere near it. So I decided to put my entrapment into good use and tackle the nest in my extractor fan. This involved all kinds of forms of wasp torture. First I switched the fan on. That pissed them off slightly. Luckily the air throws them outside and not inside. Then I decided to spray DVT (pesticide) into the extraction fan vent. This is the stuff that I think gives you cancer and deformed babies or something. Then they got really mad. I heard once that smoke drives away wasps so I put some paper in a baking tin and set fire to it under the extractor fan to cause some smoke and drive them out. But the pesticide is a little flammable so I was a few minutes trying to sort that out. The wasps didn’t seem too bothered by the smoke. Luckily there was no water cut today.

Then I tried switching the fan off for a spell, to lull them into a false sense of security, and then switching it on again really quickly. But that soon got boring. Luckily I’d decided to save some of my arsenal for the wasp in the living room, which was good as I was running out of Pimms, and ran in, nuked the bugger, and maneuvered back to the kitchen to watch it’s imminent death. But like I say, these are no ordinary wasps and I was forced to watch for 20 minutes as it paddled and splashed though the pools of toxic chemical seemingly unhinered. This stuff stops a cockroach in half a second, and they are supposed to be able to survive nuclear wars. What kind of goddamn mutant freaks are these wasps?

I summoned every ounce of courage and after a few false starts, during which it started to fly and I retreated squealing back to the kitchen I finally decided to tackle the beast.Covering my extremities in dish cloths and coats I managed to advance enough to smash it with a newspaper. The Sunday Telegraph no less. It didn’t even start limping.

It was time to get serious. And with the aid of some super hold toni and guy hairspray, I finally managed to slow it down a little. Remind me to double check the ingredients on my beauty products one day. Using a long handled broom I brushed it to the floor and stamped on it. The bugger was still moving. So after a small stomping dance, the kind of which usually signifies the start of an international rugby tournament, I figured I had it licked and with the aid of a bit of tissue tossed it into a watery grave. The damn thing still won’t flush.

Which makes me wonder how on earth I am going to get rid of the stuff in my extraction pipe. But lets face it most women wonder about that at some point in their lives.

On another note, I have been working on a retail communications strategy at work. It has been a long and arduous task, but today was the grand finale…. Presenting it to the regional sales managers, who are reputed to be a bunch of rotwiellers. I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but I will, I will, cause they were so impressed with the action plan they practically rolled on their backs and purred.

Unfortunately it doesn’t make my position much more secure. I have a lovely new boss who is very impressed with my work, but when I tackled her about my future today she admitted that in the mid term I should probably look somewhere else, but that she would be happy to help secure me a place in another opco, or even in Vodafone if I can find a niche. Not speaking Turkish is a bit of a problem in the communications business here at my level.

No matter. I appreciate her honesty and helpfulness and as of now am seeking other options.


So if you hear of anything….