"We're having a pee problem"

Yesterday, Sarah and I took Constance for a walk. We were standing on this corner in North Portland for a minute while a neighbor lady loaded her dog in her car. Constance, while a lover of all strangers, is sort of a dog hater. So, we waited for the dog to be in the car before we crossed the street. While we were standing there, the lady said something rather indecipherable that we thought was, "We're having a pee problem." We didn't pay attention. I guess what she meant to say, or what we were meant to hear was, "Don't walk down this street, there are swarms of bees and you will be stung."

We walked. Sarah and Constance were in front of me and then they were covered with bees and then we all started to get stung. This is what we did:

1. Ran
2. Flailed our arms and tried to squish the stingers
3. Took our hoodies off in the middle of the street with complete disregard for traffic
4. Flung the Chuck It and lost the tennis ball
5. Screamed a lot of swear words for about 2 blocks

We came home, with lots of stings and without our hoodies. We borrowed a car, took Constance to the Doggie ER to make sure she was ok (she is), and got ourselves some bourbon and hydrocortisone cream. We also complained. A lot. That shit hurt. Drummer said, "are you sure they're bees? The only swarm bees around here are honey bees and the rest are all solitary. They were probably wasps." So, we looked. Sure enough, Yellow Jacket Wasps.

Please note the following information we found:

"It is always best to avoid unnecessary stings. Should a yellowjacket wasp fly near you or land on your body, never swing or strike at it or run rapidly away since quick movements often provoke attack and painful stings."

"Never strike, swing or crush a wasp or bee against your body since it could incite nearby yellowjackets into a frenzied attack. Wasp venom contains a chemical "alarm pheromone," released into the air, signaling guard wasps to come and sting whomever and whatever gets in their way. Unfortunately, many serious accidents have resulted when one runs away from attacking wasps and into the path of automobiles."

"Yellowjackets have a lance-like stinger without barbs and can sting repeatedly whereas honey bees have a barbed stinger and sting only once."

"The colony then expands rapidly reaching a maximum size of 4,000 to 5,000 workers and a nest of 10,000 to 15,000 cells in August and late September."

I also read something about how they become the most aggressive in late August. Good. To. Know.

Unfortunately, the lady who tried to warn us also got stung... but not as badly as we did. She said she found out where the nest was and was going to take care of it.

We came back to the house with our anti-sting cream and booze and drank a bit while a bunch of traveling musicians played a nice show downstairs. The stings hurt intermittently throughout the evening. First the ones of our heads hurt the most, then they got better and other ones started hurting more. It was pretty bizarre. They still hurt today, but mostly itch, but when you scratch them they hurt like hell.

Sigh. And, I just took out a ton of student loans. I'm in a big "looking up" phase right now...