Sure, these are all first world problems, and when you suffer a series of small, irritating set backs then you're best to soldier on and quit your whining.
But then you're suddenly confronted with a serious problem; a problem requiring quick communication, accessible information and speedy transport to resolve safely. A problem that, if mishandled, could end with you running around the neighborhood, waving your hands around your head and screaming incoherently about wasps.
And then you realise that all those little irritations have combined to set you up perfectly, absolutely perfectly, to be helpless to fix this problem. Incoherent wasp screaming is now all but certain and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
First they took out my communications.
It was a lovely day; the beach was hot, the water was cool, children ran amongst the surprisingly large waves for a bay beach and squealed with joy as they were dumped face-first into the sand. Kids are weird.
After some cajoling, I'd convinced Kindling that snorkeling under the Portsea Pier was a great way to spend an afternoon. Kindling was understandable apprehensive about all this given her last experience of snorkeling involved being attacked by a moray eel, swimming off the edge of the reef, pursuit by a school of tuna, and coral burn in that order, but she was fooled by my reputation as a rugged outdoorsman and agreed to it all.
Oh how I smugly laughed as she struggled into her wetsuit. What an amature! Clearly I was going to get a chance to do the thing I love the absolute most in the world - show off.
And as anyone who followed my European Tours (especially the Rome incident) knows, this is a sure-fire way for me to make an arse of myself. Well mission friggin accomplished.
After 45 minutes of snorkeling, we surfaced for a break. As I was climbing out of the water I felt an odd bulk around my hip. What the heck is in my wetsu...oh joy it's my iPhone. And it's now been submerged in salty water for 45 continuous minutes.
People, whatever I may say about being independent and not relying on technology, I am full of shit. Not only did that phone have all my contacts in it, it turns out I rely on it for everything from finding a restaurant, checking my emails, and even just figuring out where the hell I am.
So the phone was gone...
...
Next they took out my transport.
Having recently moved house I have no idea where most of my stuff has gone. This was not helped by the fact I was away when my housemates moved half of said stuff, and helped significantly less by the fact that they had now all gone overseas. To Burma. Which censors the internet.
So when me and Kindling eventually found our way back to my new digs without the aid of satellite technology, I found two very serious questions waiting for me:
- Where the hell is the key to the front door.
- Who the hell has added another lock to my bike.
After finally finding the key cunningly concealed in a milk carton to prevent thieves, murderers and other undesirables such as myself from finding it, we got in and got to sleep. And dismissed the bike conundrum for another day.
And there went my primary form of transport...
...
And then they set me up the bomb.
Wasps. Friggin wasps are in my toilet wall. Ever tried to use the toilet with one hundred odd wasps building a nest 30cm from your ear before? Its about as much fun as you can imagine.
This is not good. Wasps must go.
I wasn't entirely why I felt so strongly about this, but I did. Some sort of primal fight or flight response maybe. Or just general terror. Either way, I have work tomorrow and I am not going to sleep well knowing wasps could swarm through my window while I'm asleep.
And so I made a very cleverly stupid decision. You know the sort I mean - ideas that seem genius at the time but aren't. Really, really aren't. And wading through the aftermath later you can't help but wonder how in the hell you didn't see the massive, gaping, colossal hole in that particular plan.
Like getting a tattoo on your neck. Or making it legal to sell mortgages to people who can't pay them back. Or taping 10 sparklers together on new years eve.
The only thing that prevented a fire was me being too drunk to realise I should
probably throw that bastard as far away as humanly possible.
That day's cleverly stupid idea was to try and take care of this wasp issue myslef. I'm a man. A man with a reputation as an outdoorsman to uphold! My girlfriend is here! I ain't gonna let some exterminator company look after this for me! Nosir! So off to Coles we went.
And so I found myself hanging off my housemate's balcony at 11.45pm, clutching a pack of surface spray for ants (cause that's all Coles had left, and it looked pretty powerful on the label, and how different are wasps and ants anyway, shuddup shuddup shuddup), looking at a nest with about 15 sleeping wasps attached to it and quickly realising I had no idea what I was doing.
I ran through a quick mental checklist:
- All the doors and windows are closed.
- Kindling is downstairs cooking some pizzas. No one else is home or expected home.
- My escape route inside is planned and ready.
- I'm probably not going to fall off this balcony.
...
Later that night, having evacuated the house and escaped to Kindling's place, I whopped an icepack on my fresh wasp sting, dismissed the tight feeling in my throat as psychosomatic and tried to figure out where it all went wrong.
I'd sprayed the hive and all seemed well for 10 seconds or so. Then a wasp bit me.
Ok fine, time to get inside.
Wait, why are there wasps in here as well. Oh crap.
So it turns out the walls in my new house are somewhat less that solid and the now extremely pissed off wasps where making use of this fact by the dozens. Me and Kindling abandoned the pizzas, grabs some essentials and got the hell out of there. Which is where all those minor inconveniences coalesced into one massive shitstorm.
I have no communications - I cannot tell my housemate, who is due to come home later that night about the swarm waiting for him. Nor can I contact any of my other housemates, the realestate agent, or an exterminator.
I have no transport - I cannot get to work in the morning from Kindling's place. I cannot get back to my place. I am stranded. The only thing preventing me from sleeping in a hedge is Kindling's car. That goodness for the old '86 shitbox.
And I have no home - For all I know the wasps are going to occupy my bedroom and hold a grudge. One wasp sting was bad enough thankyou. I have no intention of going anywhere near the place.
It took me 3 days to sort everything out. Fortunately for everyone involved my housemate came home, completely oblivious to the situation and just fell asleep without rousing the swarm, and after finally tracking down the real estate agent's number the exterminator took out the hive today, though not before fleeing the house from, in his words "an unbelievable number of wasps".
Now all I have to do is figure out who the hell locked my bike to the bloody fence and I'm home free.
Life remains interesting...
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