What am I saying. No it wasn't. It was beautiful!
Summer had finally arrived in all its steamy, humid, warmth and sunshine. The week had been grueling, deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, late nights and planning for an even more grueling Monday night the next week. Friday dawned sunny, hot and beautiful. All the little boxes in my notebook were checked off...except for the site walk around the 5 properties whose corners I had recovered and flagged earlier in the month. What a perfect day to spend outside...a great way to end the week.
I met my client at the first house and we walked around chatting about work, life, where we were from etc. We knew each other as long acquaintances, but shared common stories, knew common people and generally passed an enjoyable morning. We visited all 5 properties, one after another. The last property was newer than the others, recently built in the 80's. I had actually surveyed along the back line earlier in the year for another client and had found some interesting discrepancies. We looked at the front corners first. One easily found, the other missing, but presumed to be under where a neighbor had planted flowers and built a fence. The back corners were out under the trees in a brushy area, kind of wet in low spots and full of Raspberry bushes, Nettles & Celandine. We walked out to the corner and I knew I shouldn't have worn shorts for this site walk. We both had shorts on, and the raspberry bushes and Nettles were not kind. As we walked back, I began to get pricked more and more..."What a drag, I'm going to have scratched up legs." All of a sudden it seemed like the raspberry bushes seemed to have a life of their own, had become animated....or maybe it was the nettles. The thorns seemed to be moving about and pricking me all over. I reached to pull leaves and brambles away and I realized to late that the thorns were yellow, angrily buzzing and swarming over my legs and shirt....Yellowjackets!
Adrenaline shot through me like the jolt from an electric fence and I yelped and ran, swatting at the air as I went. My client, who was walking behind me, came to the panicked realization of what we were into at the same moment, and we both high-tailed it back out to the road as fast as our legs and dignity would carry us. We still had bee's crawling on us when we arrived at the truck and had to repeatedly swat them away.
I used to be allergic to bees back in High school and as we stood talking about what had just happened, the panic attack started to hit..."what am I going to do, am I breathing OK, is anything swelling." We said our goodbyes and I shot over to CVS to pick some Benadryl and Afterbite. I made it back to the office and took all my medications and preparations, and apparently, I'm not allergic (as much) any more, but my legs are pretty red and swollen in spots and sting pretty bad. And now I have that hot, sticky, over-sensitized, racy, coming down from acid feeling (memories from back in the day je je)
Friday sure started off with a bang. Bees are a normal summer work hazard, as are Poison Ivy, Heat stroke and infernal mosquitos, but honestly, I still feel that being outside on a morning like this and getting stung is better then being holed up in a dark office, ruining my back, straining the eyes and suffering the pain in my forearms while screwing around on a computer. In fact, as I eat my lunch and write this little story, I'm planning on heading back out to meet another potential client and advise him on what he might need in regards to boundary surveying.
Then its home for an afternoon in the back yard and maybe the Drive-in. Of course, that's assuming an allergy doesn't kick in late and I die within the next couple hours, but I've got my fingers crossed.
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