I have written before about my childhood adventures with deer, badgers, and other critters on my grandmother's farm. I was generally pretty happy out there--my cousin lived on the same place, there were always kittens and baby chicks to snuggle, and a creek to play in on hot days. Oh, and the storm cellar. The smell of dusty potatoes always reminds me of hiding from tornadoes in the storm cellar. Good times, good times.

Unfortunately, there are also some less-than-pleasant memories of the farm.

One Sunday when I was 12, all of our relatives--parents, uncles, adult cousins--got together to re-roof the chicken coop for my grandma. It was a hot, late-summer day, near the beginning of the school year.

Like most farms in the area, my grandparents had planted a shelter belt in the 30s. It was another fun placed to hang out--shady and loamy, and the adults couldn't see us in the trees (BIG plus!). My grandparents had left machinery in the shelter belt when they planted the trees. Why? Hell if I know, maybe they wanted something to help block the wind until the trees grew up. By the time of this adventure, the machinery had been there for some 40 years, and us kids had been playing on it for most of our lives.

That day, my cousins and I were out playing on one of those old rusted-out pieces of farm equipment. I was sitting on the very top, kicking my heels against the machinery, like I had a hundred times before. But there was a big difference this time; the machinery had become home to a colony of very irritable bumble bees.

Bumble bees are interesting critters (in the way that, say, Venezuelan Bird-Eating Spiders are interesting--e.g., terrifying). They build enormous colonies (here's one in a tool shed--those black things are the bumblers), usually with about 50 residents:

(Images courtesy of Wiki and the Bumble Bee Identifier) 

and they'll build them just about any old place. Like, for instance, old rusted-out farm equipment in a shelter belt.

Bumblers come in a wide range of sizes and colors: The vividly striped bumble bees we had in Nebraska were probably Bombus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus:

 or Bombus impatiens:

They're much bigger than the mostly black ones I have here in Oregon, which are probably Bombus caliginosus:

So, back to the brush with death:

My heels thumping on the metal disturbed the colony, and they swarmed us too fast for us to make a dignified retreat. Since I was sitting on the very highest part of the machine, it took me longer than the other kids to get down. The fact that I was never a fast runner was not to my advantage that day either--my cousins ran like the wind, leaving me as the prime target. Bumble bee stingers are not barbed (as honey bee stingers are), so they can sting multiple times, something I didn't know until that fateful day. But they taught that lesson very thoroughly: I got stung about 25 times total.

My cousins got to the house first and were trying somewhat hysterically to tell the women what had happened. I stumbled in a second later, still trying to get one of the fuckers out of the waist band of my shorts where it was continuing to sting me, out of breath, and already feeling nauseous. Minutes later I started barfing. I was burning up, shaking uncontrollably, and sweating profusely. Stepfather #1 decided I was "just trying to get attention" (!!!), and refused to take me to the doctor. That lasted until I started getting delusional delirious (oops!), at which point my mom and the rest of the family ganged up on him and told him I HAD to go to the hospital.

We drove 13 miles back to town, but he still refused to go to the hospital, and took me home instead. He continued to insist that I was over-reacting, hysterical, and trying to get attention. After we got home, my mom disobeyed a direct order and called my uncle--aka Dr. Roger. She told him what happened, how long it had been, what my symptoms were, and that I was lying on the couch being delusional delirious (oops again!). He was not pleased. He told her very forcefully to get me to the ER, **NOW.** I have since been told that he threatened to send an ambulance and the police if stepfather #1 got in the way of it.

Uncle Roger was waiting for us when we pulled up to the ER in my mom's car. I have vague memories of being put on the gurney, and Uncle Roger telling me he was going to have to give me some shots. I remember saying "I don't care, just make it stop" which scared him--I hated shots and never consented to one without a fight. 

They gave me the shots, one of which (thankfully) knocked me out. As I was going under I remember Uncle Roger yelling furiously at Stepfather #1, saying "She could have died!"

It actually made me feel a little better to hear him ripping the old bastard a new one, right there in front of God 'n everybody. : )

But wait, there's more! It was dark by the time we got to the ER, so it was probably around 9 pm. I had been stung about 25 times and had a severe allergic reaction which required medical treatment, including knocking me out. And despite all that, MY MOTHER MADE ME GET UP AND GO TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY!!!!! I was in severe pain, still running a fever of about 100 degrees, and still dazed from the meds. I was blotchy and patchy everywhere, had a lump the size of a tennis ball on my forehead where one of the bumble bees had gotten me 4 times, the waistband of my jeans hit right where I'd been stung another 6 times, and I had a headache like I'd never had before--and she made me go to school.

I have never quite forgiven her for that. :P

For years after, if I saw a bee of any type, I froze--I literally could not move. If there was more than one, I'd have a full-on panic attack. It's better now; I'm pretty much at peace with the smaller bumble bees we've got up here, unless they get to close. But it's been 32 years, and after looking at pictures of bumble bees for this post, I am trembling, sick to my stomach, and panicky.

Reason #247 for hating stepfather #1.