Hammers and Crowbars Don't Make Good Fly Swatters

So what had happen was (reminder when a sentence starts that way some shit went down) my wife and I are renovating our kitchen. Finally, she is going to get that dream kitchen - although she don’t cook so I’m not sure why it’s her dream we living in. Anyway, our cabinets are ordered and now we need to get these walls straight, insulated, new drywall up, plumbing, and electrical completed. 

Today (July 22) we are finishing our demolition work so the electrician (my wife’s uncle Cedric Gunnells) can come over and do his thing. My wife thought some late afternoon kitchen demo work would be a great family bonding experience, stress reliever - you know swinging sledge hammers at walls and not each other - because life dealing with COVID-19 is stressful enough let alone a hot summer in Detroit. Anyway, she also invited our teenage daughter Rielly (13) to join in the family “fun.” If have a young teen in the house you already know nothing is fun with them - it's drama filled.

We prepared the demo area by laying down protective coverings on our wood floors, lined up all the tools, put on our work clothing and donned our protective dust masks (N95) and eyewear. Then we started banging away at the walls like an episode of a HGTV show “Rehab Addicts.” Starting out, I was working kinda slow, it had been a long work day, I was mentally spent and at the end of my energy and enthusiasm to do anything except watching CNN if I had my wish. With the music blaring - we were listening to a classic hiphop and R&B radio station, things started to get fun. I’m swinging away the hammer just tearing down plaster, old insulation and yanking out nails from the 2" x 4" wall supports. I was having fun and actually starting to feel relaxed while destroying my kitchen. 

Then like a deejay dragging a turnable needle across a record, Rielly shouts out “oh mommy it’s a bee!” Immediately I stopped swinging the sledge hammer. “What did you say” I replied? The radio was up loud - playing a Dr. Dre and Eminem track “Forgot about Dre.” “Daddy there is a bee in here,” she said. Now at this time my wife was on a ladder tearing down a top portion of a wall on the opposite side from me. “Mommy it’s near your head,” Rielly shouted. My wife stopped hammering but when did, she started to slip down the ladder because she began swatting the air with one hand around her head. My wife was actually swatting in the air with a hammer and crowbar - as if she going to hit a bee with it - more like hit me with it.

Then Rielly shouts out again “OH MY GOD THERE’S BEE EEEEEEK!” She runs out of the kitchen dropping her hammer along the way. By this time I looked up, to focused in on the wall Contessa and Rielly were demolishing, and I see my worst nightmare- A WASP PAPER HIVE BETWEEN THE OUTER WALL AND THE OLD INSULATION. WE DONE WOKE UP SLEEPING BEES IN THE HOUSE! 

Okay, now 2020 has been a trip for me and my family. If you follow my work, you know I stay busy as a public relations professional. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I, and a group of my restaurant clients have co-collaborated to doing our part to help Detroit’s food insecure by feeding homeless shelters. And up to this point the biggest surprise thus far this summer came a few weeks ago when I testing negative (-) for COVID-19, but positive (+) for coronavirus antibodies. Finding a live wasp nest in your kitchen is absolutely terrorizing, and that takes-the-cake.

Immediately I tell my wife “get me some gloves, get the wasp spray, close the doors, FUCK IT RUN!” My wife was on it, she got the gloves and spay, but the bees - who are clearly shocked by the death blow delivered to the hive, are waking up and getting pissed off. I take the gloves from my wife - she gave me two left gloves. Fuck it, I need to make it work because our very lives depend on me getting this hive out the wall, and out of the house FAST. I take the wasp spray and I hoses down the hive like a scene from the movie “Backdraft.” I am creating a complete foam bubble around this hive. But the bees keep trying to get out. “Take that, take that mother fucker,” I said. The partially demolished wall and hive is dripping wet with foam. The bees are still stunned and woozy - some coming out the hive but dropping to the floor, others trying to fly while weighted down with foam, and some just taking off and flying around drunk and erratically. I know we don’t have much time. Why? Because we noticed outside the kitchen window bees outside the house are trying to get inside - back to their home through a small hole that is now visible after the plaster was exposed from from the inside. Oh shit! 

Pissed off bees are kinda like an entourage at a nightclub. First, they come to the party already on “hype alert,” easily excited or agitated after a few drinks. Second, if and when a fight breaks out at the club (and it always does) like entourages, bees like to gang up on you. They have no problem sucker-punching you, and then when you hit the ground they will start beating you down with kicks to the head, body, legs and actually kicking your ass. Third, like a Detroit house party, bees come to the party always with weapons - you may not get shot, but when it’s all over you may wish you had.

My wife grabbed a trash bag and hands it to me, and runs away. With the audacity (like out of a scene from the Samuel L. Jackson movie "Snakes on the Plane) she is yelling "GET THESE MOTHER FUCKING BEES, OUT MY MOTHER FUCKING HOUSE!" Damn it’s like that? I remember during our wedding ceremony the minister saying for better or worst. This would be a good worst time, and I am expecting some backup. Anyway. I snatched the trash bag and grabbed as much of the busted up hive with bees, plaster, dust and insulations as I could, and tossed it into the bag. I handed the bag to my wide saying “HURRRY, HURRY, HURRY GET THIS OUT THE HOUSE!” 

Luckily before we started demoing the walls, we put up an old blanket to keep the dust from the kitchen away from entering the dining room. The remaining bees struggling to fly around were easily fogged and killed over night. 

The moral of this story, beware of bee hives in between walls.