I’m not sure it’s possible for me to be more freaked out than I am at this moment.  Unless, of course, I were tossed from a plane wearing a faulty parachute.  That would be slightly worse.  Just slightly.

I live on the second floor of an old Victorian home (a duplex of sorts with the owners on the first floor).  Yes, I have my own personal stairway and entrance…privacy is key, people.  The house is protected from the streets by an automatic gate controlled by my own personal garage door opener-looking thingy.  Why such elaborate security?  Two words.  Crack addicts.  Oddly enough, that is not the source of my current bone-chilling fear. 

First sign of trouble:  Twenty-two mintues ago (and counting) my slighty odd (I’m being kind) next door neighbor rang my back doorbell.  My first thought?  How did she get inside the gate?  My second thought?  I’m not wearing a bra and I’ve no time to rectify that situation?  I unlock the door.

“Ummm…hi,” I say as I crack open the door, my foot braced against the inside.

This woman is the town gossip.  If she’s going to slowly kill me with tales of the neighbor’s overgrown lawn, can she hold off for a bit?  The next couple to leave Dancing With the Stars is about to be revealed.

“Yeah, uh, hi…sorry to bother you, but, um, do you know if this back porch light can be turned off?”  She’s pacing.  Why is she pacing?

The side windows of their bedroom face our backyard.  Is the light disturbing them?  Does she have to tell me so while the next couple leaving Dancing With the Stars is about to be revealed?  I mean, sweet Jesus, does this woman own a TV? 

“Well…I don’t believe so,” I reply, clenching the door knob.  “I think the light is on a sensor.”

“Ohhh…that’s not good.”

Great.  She’s going to call the cops and have us cited for “sleep disturbance”.  And I’m going to be cuffed and marched out to my awaiting police escort just as the next couple leaving Dancing With the Stars is about to be revealed.  Ironically, a string of crack addicts will wave at me with their lit pipes as the kind officer places a firm hand on my head and guides me into the backseat.

“I tried to call Leslie (downstairs neighbor), but they’re at a civic association meeting,” she continues.  Is her left eye twitching?

I nod.  “Okay…”

“The thing is,” she says.  Prepare for the big reveal, folks.  “We have a beekeeper in our front yard…”

I think I blanked out at this point.  I’m not sure if you noticed the passing comment in my last blog entry.  The one about an unwarranted fear of bees and my careening into swimming pools to avoid them.  Well, It’s possible that statement did not appropriately convey the intense terror these buzzing, stinging (sometimes killer) insects evoke in me.

“Did…did you say ‘beekeeper’?”

“Oh yes,” Twitchy continues.  She’s excited now.  This is big news and she’s aware of its impact on me.  “We have a massive hive in the pine tree in our front yard.  The beekeeper is about to knock it down.”

I felt my hand reaching for my heart.

“And if this light isn’t turned off, those bees will come racing right for it.”

Hand is over mouth now.  I’m feeling faint.  I no longer care about the identity of the next couple to leave Dancing With the Stars.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘massive’,” I ask.  “I mean, how many bees are we talking about here?”  My voice is quivering.  She seems to be pleased by this.

“Oh, dear…” she pauses for dramatic effect.  “I’d guess thousands.”

I’m never leaving my house again.  Ever.  A scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s ”The Birds” flashes before me.  Remember the old movie with Tippie Hedren…the one where hords of evil birds wedge their way through air vents and chimneys to enter Melanie Daniel’s home, peck at her eyeballs and tangle in her hair.  I’m certain this will be my fate…except the birds will be bees - killer bees, and I will be found far too late, in front of my TV…a swollen version of my former self…just as the next couple to leave Dancing With the Stars is revealed.

My downstairs neighbors pull in the drive, much to my relief.

“Can we turn off this light?” I shriek. 

 ”It’s on a sensor,” Leslie replies…much to my horror.

“But the bees…they’ll swarm us!” I cry.

Twitchy is sporting an evil smile.  “I’ll tell our guy to get started,” she says.  “I’d stay inside if I were you.”

“But…”

“Just stay inside.”

You don’t have to tell me twice.

I close the door behind me and race to my pantry/linen closet.  I grab two faded bath towels, circa 1989 (I may be panicked, but I will not sacrifice the good stuff).  I jam them into the bottom edge of both external doors (apparently emergency preparation for floods and killer bee attacks are one and the same), grab my phone, jump in my bed and bury myself under the covers.  Bella, of course, crawls on top of me and lays across my ribs.

I call my father.  He talks me off the ledge by walking me through a beekeeper’s duties.  Why does he know this?  Is it possible to know something about everything? 

(Me: ”Hey Dad…did you hear about the pack of female spider monkeys in the Amazon that have become asexual…tossed the males aside?”)

(Dad: “Oh yes…apparently the females have developed the ability - over a period of 300 years - to…”)

You get the point.  Back to the bees.  Encyclopedia Wynn explains that the beekeeper will calm the killer insects with magical smoke (can I get this in prescription form), place a bag around them, tie it up and take them away.  There will be no dark, swarming cloud around my light-on-a-sensor.  My heart rate begins to slow and we move on to the letter “C” of subjects in my Dad’s encyclopedia brain.  Fifteen minutes later, I hear the beekeeper’s truck pull away.  I peek out the window to find clear skies, but I keep the towels in place, just in case.  I’m no fool.

I missed the reveal, by the way, on Dancing With the Stars.  But I’m alive, people.  I’m alive.  And the Internet can fill me in.  Or I can just ask my father.

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