A RAMBO FANTASY

         The Spanish Inquisition launched another sortie here yesterday. I'll bet you didn't know that living in the country left me vulnerable to the ravages of the Church of Fair Nature A-bloom, A-foot and On-wing. If it isn't mice coming in for a sip of water, then it must be a tribe of homesteading wasps asking for their forty acres and a mule.

         Earlier in the summer, they tried to establish co-habitation rights above the broken bay window, attaching their nest to the metal that covers the bottom of the overhang. I had beaten them back by spraying them as 'heavenly shades of twilight' fell weeks ago. Monday I found them there again, moving into the nest that the can of spray assured me would be inhospitable. Another dose of spray, another rout and this time I took a broom and knocked down the nest the next day.

         Yesterday was a day of travel. The ride was uneventful. I was gone for no more than five hours. When I returned the wasps had thrown down pontoon bridges and established a beachhead in the space which would hold the top of the storm window in the front door, were that window in place. As I opened the door, I hoped they had a short memory.

         Once inside, my blood began to boil as I watched wasps fly to the screen and blithely walk up inside the door frame. They were attempting a coup, and soon dog and I would be reduced to sneaking out a back entrance, assuming they did not find that too. We would probably have to wear armbands, or be issued identity cards.

         I tore off my shirt, put on my ammo belt, and rubbed ashes under my eyes. Grabbing the spray and ignoring the warnings to only use when it was near dark, I shot a stream up into the opening. Great confusion ensued, wasps dropped to the porch floor or flew drunkenly around in the air. In a few moments, all was quiet. I gave a thumbs up salute to my brood.

         Brood looked back adoringly. Man, the protector of hearth and home, had saved them again. Thus it has always been and, more than likely, it will always be. How well a man protects the weak and helpless defines him. As I age, my bravery quotient is reaching Congressional Medal of Honor levels.

         It wasn't always this way. For years, my late wife insisted she confront the stingers of the world, for fear a counterattack would set off my asthma. Only as her health declined was the job relegated to me. I had always been the agent to deal with other four legged creatures and events of nature such as blizzards and hurricanes. It was I, the man, who had to confront the St. Bernard who jumped into the rear of our station wagon to meet our beautiful female collie-shepherd. I also dealt with the thirty inches of snow, the flooded basements, and the invasion of the neighbor's gerbil.

         My wife always feared the worst when I went off to confront calamity. She remembered well the first time she called on me for help on our late September honeymoon at her family cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. The cabin was reachable only by boat, lit by propane, heated by chuckstove or fireplace, and all water was pumped up from the lake by a gas motor ordered from a 1925 Sears catalogue. After the third day, rain descended and did not leave until we did.

         Someone had left us gigantic cans of food that are used in cafeterias. We avoided opening these, knowing well that we could only eat so much beef hash in ten days and that the leftovers would have to be hauled down the lake and to the town dump. My wife, however, was a confirmed chocoholic and could not resist the can of pudding, but she could not eat it all. By our last night, she had to put the half-empty can in the covered trash can outside on the screened porch.

         It must have been three in the morning when she woke me to tell me there was something out on the porch, and I SHOULD GO SEE WHAT IT WAS AND SCARE IT AWAY. She told me it was probably a racoon, but as I approached the door, I thought back on her tales of her grandfather showing her coons far larger than any cats she had ever seen.

         Now I was supposed to step out on the dark porch, confront an animal with night vision and tell it to leave the premises. There was no phone to call the State Police, nor did we have the proper first aid to treat a severed foot. Furthermore, she assumed it was a racoon and not a black bear. Thankfully, though I was sweating up a storm in the forty-five degree evening, I had my brain working overtime.

         I went into the kitchen, lit the fixture there, grabbed a metal pot and a large metal spoon and began banging on the bottom, all the while casting some curse on the creature on the other side of the door. I hoped the beast did not find the spare key on the post under the cabin. After a time, quiet reigned and I retired to bed.

         Twice more that night I was roused to repeat the treatment. Despite her pleadings, I was not about to step out on the porch to shake its paw. In the morning we found the bottom of the screen door pushed in, the trash can turned over and an empty can of chocolate pudding rolling on the porch floor. Somewhere in the woods was a racoon with a case of the runs, but I was not about to bother to pursue it to extract vengence.

         When I told this story to a friend, she nodded and said that I am expected to protect the weak, and that the next time she visits, I can expect blood curdling screams should a mouse ask for a drink. Some jobs come with the territory, but I would like to improve my odds. I am searching the web for a discount price on hand grenades. Let the bastards come, I'll be ready.

Valatie July 26, 2001