This week: An intense rivalry with a hornet, a death chamber, and a quest for salvation.
Art by Pete Whitehead
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Orginal Music: Aaron Calafato
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Music Contributor: thomas j. duke
Podcast Coordinator: Cori Birce
Creative Consultant: Anthony Vorndran
Transcript
AllHornetsGotoHeaven.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
You're listening to Seven Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. Visit our website 7minutestories.com. That's the number 7minutestories.com to see the awesome new merch available this season. Choose from stickers, koozie, tee shirts, tote bags, and more. I have to say the tote bag is my favorite. This episode, "All Hornets Go to Heaven."
I spent about a month from August to September trying not to be attacked, every time I came to the front door of my house. It was a hornet. Black and white hornet, about the size of my pinky. Aggressive, dangerous, hornet stings are no joke, right? This would kill people. And I looked for a nest, for days. Couldn't find a nest anywhere around the house. In the house. On the siding where they live, and they burrow in there. Nothing. It was just a rogue, aggressive, dangerous hornet.
Fall was coming. It's probably on its way out of this world. It was mean and that's all that it did, was attack people. I had to send warnings to people via text message when they came over, "Hey, just be careful. When you come to my house and pull in the driveway, you might be attacked by a hornet. Watch out." All capital letters, exclamation point in the text. Unbelievable. I had family members who had to sprint from their car to my front door with a hood pulled over their head so they weren't stung.
I thought to myself, "This has been a month, and I'm so pissed off. How am I living like this? I'm being held hostage by a hornet? In my own home?" It's threatening the lives of myself and my family. I was really angry. But then, unexpectedly, a miracle occurred and the hornet was caught. But it wasn't by me or an adult. It was caught by my kids. See, years ago, I had gotten my daughter this little bug catcher; when she was really little. And eventually all three kids used it and they were really altruistic with this thing.
It was a very non-threatening colorful bug catcher, with the little holes in there so the insects could breathe and you could see through it. But they would open this up to non-aggressive insects and they would let them go in there. Like crickets, grasshoppers, fireflies, flies and stuff like that. And they would put a bed of grass in there, maybe some food, and they would observe and talk to the insects. And then eventually, the rule was they would let them out.
That's how I was raised. When I was a kid, even with flies in the house, my mom was like, "Well, it's a life force and if you don't have to kill them, if they're not hurting you, you should try to let them out." So I've always tried to teach that to my kids and they did this with this bug catcher. It was like a resort. An oasis. An Airbnb for non-aggressive insects.
So what ends up happening is the kids put this bug catcher on the front of the porch and they open up this little plastic door. And for some reason, the black and white hornet flies in there and they run up and shut the little door behind it, trapping it inside. I get home from an errand one day, they run out, "Dad, dad, we caught the hornet." I'm like, "You guys caught the hornet? You're amazing." Gave them all high fives. Was so proud of them. They go back inside and I'm left alone on the porch with this hornet, and I walk up to the bug catcher.
I'm going to be honest and admit what I said.
I whispered to it. Looking at it, crawling in this little cage. And I said, "Look at you now, you son of a bitch. Thought you could attack my family, be aggressive, hurt people. And look at you now?" And I'm not going to lie, I know that I'm talking to an insect. But that vengeance felt good. It felt really good. However, I was now presented with a new challenge, which was, what do I do with the hornet?
My thought at first was, I'll just let it go. I'll go out into the woods somewhere and let it go. But if you looked at the cage, you had this very small opening. So it would require me to put my hand around the entrance of the cage or maybe have to put a glove on. But hornet was so angry that I was afraid that if I let it out, I would have to drop it and then run away. I was afraid of getting stung. Also, I didn't want to just leave the bug catcher in the middle of the woods somewhere because the kids loved the bug catcher, so I couldn't get rid of that.
And I was going through all these different options. Now you might think to yourself, "Well, just dress up so you don't get stung. Like wear layers. Let the hornet out and then run away." Here's the issue, I know there's a lot of danger in the world and a lot of hornets out there and things that can harm people; but I could not live with myself thinking that I would let this aggressive hornet out. And what if one day the hornet that I let out of this bug catcher stings some little girl?
Or stings some nice person and hurts them? Or even worse?
I couldn't live with that. I'm a one drop in the ocean makes a difference kind of guy and I think about these things. So the only option was one of two things. Option one, let the hornet die in this cage. Just naturally over time. Or do what the kids suggested to me, which was spray it with bug spray and kill it immediately. I went for option one. I thought it was the most humane thing to do. I didn't want to hurt it.
I thought, let nature take its course. Well, here's the thing. It did. Four days go by, the hornet's still in the cage. And every day it's getting worse and worse and struggling. Now I'm an active participant in torture. I have no compassion for this hornet and I don't like how I was feeling with this thing. So I finally took the kids' advice and I got some bug spray, and I was going to become an executioner and kill this hornet.
I waited till everybody was gone and I take the bug catcher into the backyard, put it in the center of the backyard. But I wanted to make it like a ceremony, sort of honor its life. So I get the bug spray. I'm pointing it at it with the hose, and I say a prayer. I felt compelled to say a prayer for this thing. Don't ask me why. I just was like, "This is probably the right thing to do." I say the prayer and I start spraying this hornet.
And you won't believe it, this thing's hanging with its little claws under the side of the cage. And if it had a voice, it would be saying like, "Oh, is that all you got?"
And it's hanging on. It's leaning in, as I'm spraying full force these toxins on it and it won't back down. It won't give up. It's fighting to survive. And now I start screaming at the hornet, "Why aren't you dying?" I'm spraying it. And I'm thinking, "What is wrong with this thing?" And in this moment, I start to gain a tremendous amount of respect for this hornet. I thought to myself, "It didn't ask to be created a hornet. It was just made the way it was made. Had no choice in the matter."
It didn't have the power of rational thought like me to go, "You know, maybe I shouldn't sting these people and hurt these people." It just did what hornets do. It wasn't its fault. But as it died there, clinging to the side of the cage, never giving up, never falling down, I felt this tremendous amount of compassion. And I identified with its will to live and its will to survive. And I admired it.
I went inside, left the little bug catcher out there overnight. But in the morning, my youngest son ran out there. I didn't see him at first, and he kind of shook the bug catcher thing and the hornet fell out. And then he stomped on the dead hornet. And I opened the door and said, "What are you doing? That hornet's dead. You don't need to do that." He said, "I just wanted to make sure it didn't sting anybody. It didn't hurt anybody else." And I just looked at this scene in the backyard and that's when I knew all hornets go to heaven.
Seven Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Audio production by Ken Wendt. You can connect with Ken or inquire about his audio production services at media216.com. Original artwork by Pete Whitehead. Find out more about Pete's work at petewhitehead.com.
Our creative consultant is Anthony Vorndran and Lennon Janavak is our production assistant. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcast. And lastly, I'm Core Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
This episode of Seven Minute Stories is made possible by Fishbowl. I didn't really know much about Fishbowl until Aaron started doing his live audio talks about storytelling and podcasting there. Since then I've been pretty much obsessed. If you didn't know, Fishbowl is a social app where professionals go to connect. Since joining Fishbowl, I've met a bunch of cool people and have learned a ton from live talks with industry experts.
I know Aaron loves it because he works 100 percent remotely as a podcaster. I'll be announcing new upcoming dates for Aaron's Live Fishbowl talks in the future. For now, download the Fishbowl app for free today.
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