OK, the title is a lie, I had my dad squirt it. But let me back it up.

As you may know, we’ve had some battles with bugs in this new place. The final straw was a giant ant hill in the front yard. We called pest control. I was tired of thinking every fleck of lint was a spider (especially since, sometimes it WAS).

I took Annie and Rigby to my parents’ house during the exterminator visit, leaving Mike to find out just how bad the bugs were. And the good news is that the house, “wasn’t the worst” the exterminator had ever seen. Yay? He did say we had a horrible case of ants, and that he’d sprayed the hornets’ nest with special chemicals and that we needed to knock it down after 24 hours or the hornets would come back.

RECORD SCRATCH! We have a hornets’ nest? I’m no bugologist, but that sounds bad. The nest was in the eaves right outside our bedroom. I was immediately glad I didn’t know about the hornets before the exterminator’s visit.

Yesterday was Operation: Knock Down Hornets’ Nest. I put on my gear:

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First, you have to cover your head. I didn’t have any netting, so I used some Halloween spider web stuff to protect my face. I didn’t want any skin exposed so I put on long sleeves and pants. I used oven mitts because they were the only gloves I had. And I had on sandals because I haven’t unpacked any closed-toed shoes other than heels, and those are hard to run from bugs in.

SO. Once I was dressed, I convinced my dad to come help me remove the nest. And by help me, I mean have him do it while I supervise. He foolishly declined my offers for safety gear. Tsk tsk.

The nest looked to be about the size of a softball, and was gross.

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My dad thought a good approach would be to spray the nest with a hose. Sounded like as good a plan as any.

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That’s a loooong distance for that water to travel.

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Despite a solid stream of water, the nest didn’t budge. Annie took advantage of the lull in the action to splash in the puddles.

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My dad suggested poking it with a long stick. I thought, “hmm, I don’t think I have any 20-foot sticks in my backyard,” but of course, my dad had thought of that. He’d brought a pool stick thingy. Yes, that’s the technical term. You know, something you stick a net on when you want to clean your pool. It extends and stuff.

ANYWAY. My dad lifted the pool pole into position, then said, “Heather, be ready to RUN.” Oh goody, running, my favorite.

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He started batting at the nest, and it fell to the ground and split into two pieces. It was icky.

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I took a picture of the broken nest, and then my dad said all casual-like, “hey, let’s go inside right now!” and before he’d wrapped his lips around the end of that sentence, there was a Heather-shaped dust cloud where I’d been standing.

When the nest fell, a ton of hornets fell out all over the ground. My dad couldn’t tell if any of them were alive but he didn’t want to take any chances. After about twenty minutes he went back outside and swept up hundreds of dead hornets. Awwwwwwwwwesome.

Now we’re going to be haunted by a bird, a scorpion, and hundreds of hornets. Now all we need to make my nightmares come true is a big hairy tarantula.