Muff

I’m pretty sure that I shall never drive, I simply can’t imagine my self behind the wheel of what almost certainly would be a people knocker downer-cum squausher death machine, I simply am too much of a dreamer. This of course makes me heavily reliant on me mates, which is alright since we do most things together, a lift is assuresd. The trick is to mould the way people think about you, not so much a passenger as an honoured travelling companion to be fought over. Besides I have a hold over them, since I am the gang cook moll, if they want feeding after a shameful night’s shenanigans, they had better come good in the transportation department.

But for everyday to-ing and fro-ing I take the bus, at this time of year besides the normal respectable fare paying passengers there is likely to be  at least one, perhaps more, terrorists on the bus, they are not very big terrorists it is true [I am not talking about the denizens of the local primary school] no these fellows are usually not much longer than an inch and look very pretty in their yellow and black striped jerseys, but there is a sting in the tail.

My motto has always been “live and let live” but such a philosophy as that depends upon unity of opinion and action, there must be a broad consensus for however honourable and common sensical your approach there is always some twerp occupying a seat in front who believes that non-fare paying wasps ought to be whanged and that with the utmost savagery in a backward direction. So what had only a few seconds ago had been a moderately harmless flying insect has been transformed into a letal bullet sized missile and he’s coming in your direction. Nor is he feeling particularly overwhelmed with the human species, in fact he has a chip on his shoulder and the printmarks of the daily sun up his arse, he is not happy. 

 

It’s amazing what two 6 year old girls can find to do when left to their own devices, when my cousin Tracey came over for the week-end there was always mischief afoot. One day we discovered a wasp nest at the bottom of the garden, now if wasps did not have such a bad reputation for being such a bunch of nasty pantzez we would probably have been content to leave them alone, but to our way of thinking such ill natured fellows were just begging to be all riled and rassled up, and we found just the implement with which to do it in me mum’s clothes line prop. For some reason probably left unexplored my mum was extremely proud of the family underwear, or so you would think the way she used to hoist it high in the air for all the world to gaze and wonder at, the clothes line prop was about 10 feet long.

So the battle scene was set, numerically speaking at least the odds were weighted heavily in favour of the jaspery wasps, 10s of thousands of them versus two small girls both now stationed at the same end of the pole. “Charge!” we yelled as we delivered a ramming blow with our parliamentary pike into the unsuspecting royalist camp, we watched with some satisfaction as a great cloud of wasps filled the air rising up like a pillar, after what was a surprisingly short reconnaisance they evidently decided there was nothing doing and the pillar collapsed downwards as they returned to their normal daily jaspery duties “charge!” the roundheads yelled again and were duly rewarded with a repeat performance of the same, up went the cloud, forming into pillar formation as before. But on this second occassion there was a difference in as much as the reconnaisance was not a short one, neither did the pillar show any sign of collapsing, just the opposite in fact for alarmingly the had spotted the business end of the clothes prop, and even more alarmingly they had spotted two small girls at the other end of the afore mentioned pole. It was time for the Cromwellians to beat a hasty and ignominious retreat and this we did with great speed hotly pursued by the entire outraged royalist army.

However fast we ran we were caught by the vanguard of the swarm, I was behind Trace so I was the first to cop it, I got 6 stings on the legs, Trace got two and one in the neck before we made it into the outside lavatory and slammed shut and locked the door, we stuffed the bottom of the door with our cardigans. Tracey who was always more of a wimp than me started to cry as we leaned against the wall and watched with horror as literally thousands of wasps spattered against the gravelled window hitting it with the force of heavy hailstones. We were locked in the lavatory for an hour and long after the wasps had given it up as a pointless excercise before we dared to emerge and make a bolt for the house where we could treat our battle wounds with something a bit more scientific than water. My dad cleared the nest out that night when he came home from work, needless to say I have always had a healthy respect for those little fellows in yellow ever since.