Feel like dancing ~ my column from Sunday's paper

Something happened this past week that made me dance a little jig. Last Thursday after work, I decided to take a walk. Our collie, Caillou, loves walking in winter, but he is less than enthused in August. Maybe the mink coat he wears makes him lethargic when it gets hotter than Lucifer in latex.

But Hook, the new kid (short-haired bulldog) in town was excited, and we set out down through the shaded part of our field to get some exercise.

After about 30 minutes I started wilting like a rose after the prom and on the last leg of the walk, I stopped for a moment in the shade behind the barn.

There’s an old Ford pickup parked down there that was once blue as the summer sky. The automaker

built the old beast when Bill Clinton was in the White House, and it was the last truck Jilda’s dad Sharky had owned before he died. We can’t bring ourselves to sell it, but Mother Earth is slowly reclaiming in.

As I stood there leaning against the truck, Ol’ Hook ran up to the door and started sniffing. I said, “What is it, boy?” But he is deaf as a post, so he paid me no mind.

I figured a chicken snake had probably crawled inside, so I opened the door slowly to have a look. There was a snake skin under the seat, but I didn’t see a live snake.

Slamming the door closed, I started to walk on toward the house when I felt something burning on my ankle and then several more around my knee. The pain branched through my body like a vine.

WASPS!!!!! I screamed along with a combination of words that would not be appropriate to print in a family newspaper. I also did this little dance that would have gone viral on social media had someone had the good fortune to film it.

Hook is very protective of us and sensed my pain. He went after the wasps to get revenge for their treatment of me. I dragged him by the collar away from the truck as I limped toward home.

I don’t consider myself mean spirited, but those guinea wasps will die horrible deaths.

All the way home I thought of creative ways to smite them. Setting the truck on fire is one option, but that would be problematic.

Hosing down their habitat with wasp spray is effective, though I’m not sure they will suffer like I did. Afterward, I plan to jab a stick through their dripping nest and stick it up by the truck to serve as a harbinger to other wasps.

Once I was back in the house, I sat on the couch, put ice packs on the knee, and watched the hummingbirds feeding on sugar water just outside our great room windows. This past time always soothes jangled nerves. After a while, when the pain subsided, I felt better.

As I surveyed the red spots where I’d been stung, the melody of an old song came to mind, “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” and I had to smile.