I don't want to alarm anyone... but we have wasps. I want to stress that you should not panic. Stay in your homes and places of business, and go about your daily activities. But at this point I am going to have to elevate our wasp terror alert status to orange, or: "oh shit! wasps!"

I wouldn't say we've got an infestation, but there's definitely a cloud of a few dozen of these flying jerks hanging around the end of our deck. They're up to something, and my bet is that they're thinking about building a nest.

On the upside, mankind's anti-wasp arsenal has advanced much faster than our relatively sucky anti-ant technology. You've probably seen cans of wasp spray in the supermarket but never bought one. But did you know that these cans are regularly designed to shoot their poison in a twenty foot stream? If you did, I bet you would've bought more. Come on, that sounds like fun.

Check this stuff out. I know what you're thinking: "Green Chem? How's that supposed to kill any wasps, much less make the environment uninhabitable for future wasp generations?" Fair enough. But it's made out of something called "tetramethrin". That sure doesn't sound environmentally friendly.

Also, allow me to direct your attention to the fact that in addition to launching itself twenty feet at the slightest bidding (and sometimes without, to keep the wasps off-guard), this particular chemical has a dieletric breakdown voltage in excess of twenty-five thousand volts! That seems like a lot. Unless these wasps are unusually powerfully ionized (always possible), I don't like their chances.

The trick is going to be rescuing the jar of sun tea I have brewing underneath Wasp Central prior to the deployment of poison. Or I could just aim extra carefully. And afterward, maybe try to drink the potentially-tainted tea extra fast, so as to minimize my exposure. Yeah. Something like that.

Anyway, you can see that a plan is emerging. Don't worry about anything. Continue to shop and patronize restaurants. But if in the next few days you call us and the phone line is picked up, but all you hear is a strange buzzing... well, maybe drive by with your windows up before trying the door.