One Saturday, I was out riding with the usual crowd (gaggle, gang… I especially like what they call a bunch of crows, a murder) when we decided to leave our bikes at the bottom of a hill near the end of our neighborhood. We walked up a ways, past some blackberry bushes and into a little meadow of sorts where the hill leveled off. It’s unfortunate that we were never able to go back there, because it was a really neat place. It would have been a fun area to get together and plan pirate raids, or whatever sophisticated adventures 10-year-old boys can devise. My memory is foggy regarding everyone present… David, because of the bumblebee. Jodi, because what happened was his fault. After we got to the meadow we were hanging out and shooting the breeze. Jodi found a few cans and started throwing them at a line of berry bushes. If you’re a boy and you pick something random up, there’s a law that says you have to throw it. Whatever you try to hit then becomes a target which any other nearby boys must attempt to hit too. You have to do it. It’s a law. Still, what followed was Jodi’s fault, law or no law.

So, like I said, we’re standing there talking and throwing and all of a sudden, they’re all over us. Bees! What smidgen of manliness we were able to display at any given time was now thrown out the window as we began to scream and run for our lives toward our bikes at the bottom of the hill. The whole scene resembled a cartoon as we pedaled madly down the street toward our homes. Bees were falling out one of my short sleeves as they left their barbed stingers in my upper arm. David managed to get stung by a bumble bee which must have been hanging around the honey bee hive, waiting for stupid boys to stop by. David was the biggest, so I guess it was fair that he got bragging rights, since he was stung by the largest bee. Neighborhood stores of Bactine were depleted as we each visited our own first-aid stations. My one swollen arm gave me the appearance of a professional tennis player. Home we stayed, for the rest of the weekend, just in case the bees were conducting surveillance outside each of our houses. Yes, they were good times, the worst of times, the “beest” of times.

To “bee” continued…