Last weekend, I was raking leaves in our backyard, a sizable space that hasn’t been properly maintained for years. It’s a wilderness — in more ways than one, I found out. While raking, I felt a sudden burning sensation on my left wrist. I looked down to find a yellow jacket squirming around, getting ready to hit a second time. Of course, at the moment I didn’t realize it was a yellow jacket. I stood there looking at it, thinking, “How odd. And how painful.” Suddenly, in my left shoulder I felt another, then another sting. The fascination quickly subsided and I began walking away, then running when a swarm began forming around me.

Yellowjackets like to build nests where they won’t be disturbed, I read somewhere on the internet. That’s a perfect description of our backyard — a place a yellow jacket wouldn’t be disturbed. Until the new owner goes out with a $40 monster rake he bought for the express purpose of dealing with the four to six inches of leaves in the backyard.

Fortunately, I only got hit four times. One almost got me above the eye, but somehow I managed to evade him.

Yesterday, I decided to seek revenge. But first some precautions:

Armed with Ortho Hornet and Wasp Killer (because yellow jackets are really just wasps, and so are hornets for that matter), I approached the nest carefully, fired a test shot to the side, then attacked.

Then they attacked.

“This stuff is supposed to kill them on contact,” I thought, running up the hill toward the house.