By Patti Parish-Kaminski, Publisher
Armed and deadly with a flower fly swatter. Effective and pretty.
Everything always happens when Mr. Kaminski is not home. Not only is he not home, he is typically out of town – for days. That’s been the modus operandi for 30 years now. You would think I would be accustomed to this reality. I assure you, I am not.
This week was no exception. Multiple issues transpired while Mr. Kaminski was away. My printer went down – again. This is a common happenstance only when Mr. Kaminski is not here to fix it. After two days of trying everything under the sun – in my limited technological repertoire, of course – I solved the problem. I purchased and installed a new, more friendly printer. The old printer now resides on the front porch ready to welcome Mr. Kaminski home when he returns.
The porch brings me to the next issue. Y’all know I love my porch. I hang out there. I write from there. I drink wine from there. It’s my happy place.
Squatters in the form of wasps moved into my porch this week – hordes of them. They are not paying rent; therefore, their eviction was imminent. Granted, this process began while Mr. Kaminski was here; however, it was not satisfactorily completed as his thought was to destroy the nest, not the invaders. The ever-resilient pests simply relocated to another part of the porch and re-built their home multiple times.
Now I am not as tender nor eco-friendly as Mr. Kaminski. I was out for complete annihilation of the species. The only bug I fancy is a dead bug, and I commenced with this mindset to solve this problem permanently. Sure I sprayed, but to be thorough, post spraying, I stayed outside lying in wait with a sure fire weapon in tow: a fly swatter. When one of the wicked wasps returned or was barely hanging on due to the fumigation frenzy, I ended it – permanently.
This evacuation procedure took two days. Wasps are wiley little critters, but if I didn’t outsmart and outgun them, I certainly outlasted them. They came to the fight with a little stinger; I had a big can of poison, a fly swatter and wicked determination. They didn’t have a chance.
Mr. Kaminski will be home tomorrow, but there’s only one issue unresolved from this week’s woes. When I inform him, I’ll lead with, “Honey, I’m strong, very strong.”
His response, as always, will be, “What did you break?”
He’s not wrong. But in my defense, it takes brute strength to break a seat belt on a car. I am strong, very strong. See y’all next week – on the porch!
Patti Parish-Kaminski
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