partial_accumen

I wasn’t prepared for those stings on my skin to still be hurting some a week later.

Yellow jackets on the other hand are complete assholes. We had a nest of them in the yard once and they would go way out of their way to sting people, just for the hell of it.

This was my experience too. I had thought that bees had moved into a bush in my yard. I was happy to have bees there. A week later I was mowing the grass and felt several stabs of pain on my back and wrist. I turn around and see the air is filled with them. I had swatted one in my escape and had a corpse to inspect later and found it was a Yellow jacket wasp. From a distance I could see they were entering and exiting a hole near the bottom of the bush. A quick internet search later I knew that they were nearly dormant at night, and that they need a special oil they produce on the outside of their body to breath. Dawn dish soap apparently strips that away and they die, and its not toxic to the ground or environment.

I put half a bottle of Dawn squirted into their hole at the bottom of the bush at night. I never saw another Yellowjack wasp.

The worse the world becomes, the more I go out of my way to be kind to people. Especially those people being hit the hardest. People doing retail jobs? I treat them with respect, acknowledge them as people, and honestly thank them when they helping me that day. People doing restaurant jobs? I seek out the manager and let them know how good the worker I interacted with did. There’s a fast food restaurant I frequent, and I’m on first name basis with the manager. One day the representatives from corporate were in the store and I interrupted their conversation (after verifying they were from corporate) and let them know I get great service from that location. They thanked me for sharing the feedback.

Another day when I was out for lunch, I found a wallet in the middle of a parking lot and saw it had a specific bank’s debit card in it. There was a branch of that bank a block away. I took the wallet to the bank, letting them know where I found it, and asked if they could use their known contact information for the debit card owner to make sure the wallet got back to its owner.

I do more than this too, but I would prefer not to go into those details of other ways I help.

In short, be a positive force in the universe with your actions. Leave a wake of kindness behind you as you move through life. Do what you can, even in the small ways, of making the lives of others better. Oh, and I am not a fan of soggy straws, so I use glass straws instead (they clean easy in the dishwasher).