Curious meeting on a Wednesday afternoon

Remember those flowering bushes around campus I described several posts ago?

Well the flowers are just about totally shriveled up now so the bushes are mostly just green again, which is fine with me - I like them green too. And I suppose that some bees still find nectar or whatever they're looking for occasionally, but mostly the happy busy buzzing is gone.

Incidentally, Wednesdays are my busiest days and at about 4:00pm I move my car closer to the building. My street parking ends at 4, and instead of leaving to go home (which I do every other day of the week), I stay a smidge later to clean up from a tea that we have every Wed afternoon that ends at the same time I usually leave - 4. So I'm rushing out to my car with full arms trying to hurry (I was running a little late), and passed by the bushes mentioned in that earlier post on my way to the street parking where my car was.

At that moment, something flies out of the bush, up over my head and is gone. I thought nothing of it. Bees don't particularly freak me out (that goes for bees, not wasps, mind you. A certain traumatic experience comes to mind in the back of my Dad's huge maroon car at age 8ish that involved my sister sitting completely still, breathless, as the rest of us watched a giant wasp crawl across her closed eyelid. It was summer and the wasp had flown in through one of the open windows and landed on her. I still remember my Dad's urgently soft voice "Michal, don't move"...). But back to the subject, I'm cool with bees.

So, like I said, I though nothing of it. About 2.7 seconds later, I felt a little pain on my forehead. The two things were completely unlinked for me and I absentmindedly untangled one of my arms to brush that spot, when my finger landed upon...

it.

That damned bee.

It was stinging me on the head.

"What the heck?", you may say. That's what I said too! (I didn't do anything to the friggin bee)

So there I am, in my "I'm a grown-up" office attire, absolutely flipping out on the campus sidewalk, squealing who knows what, and brushing my head and hair in that if-it's-stuck-in-my-hair (WHY did I wear it curly that day) then-I-want-to-get-it-out-but-I-don't-want-to-have-a-beestung-finger sort of way. And honestly, I was beyond disgusted and didn't want to touch it anyway. Of course I forgot that I'd worn a couple of pins in my hair that day so every few steps I would stop and frantically brush at them until I remembered, after about 3 such mini freak-outs, that no, they were not alien objects after all.

And yes, of course, there was someone behind me on his cell phone, probably wondering what in the world was wrong with me. I didn't turn around to see if I knew him. It's a small campus.

Thankfully I caught the bee mid-sting so there is no damage visible now.

Yikes.

(I'm not gonna lie - it is comforting to think that I have come away slightly stung but mostly unscathed by the encounter, while she's almost certainly in bee heaven by now...that's how I roll)