Buck Fees

While I was returning our lawn to bourgeois respectability yesterday, my mower annoyed some stinging insect, which manifested its displeasure by drilling me just over my left eyebrow. As it didn't hurt very much, I suspect the offending creature to have been a yellowjacket wasp, whose stings aren't particularly painful unless you piss off a whole hiveful of them and they attack en masse. (Personal experience talking, here.)

I didn't think any more of it until I began to notice some difficulty seeing out of my left eye. Taking a shower after the hot work, I glimpsed my face in the bathroom mirror to find that the eyelid was quite alarmingly swollen. As the day progressed, the swelling around the whole eye increased to the point where I couldn't see out of it at all.

Not a terribly vain man, I was nonetheless rather disturbed at my new Elephant-Man look. As common sense dictates, I took some of the antihistamine Benadryl, which had little effect save to put me in the absolute vilest mood. The constant pressure on my eyeball gave me a
blinder of a headache, too.

I woke up this morning to find that the eyelid was even more swollen than when I'd gone to bed. The swelling's gone down a bit now, mid-morning, but co-workers are still looking at me slantendicular and asking if I've been in a fight. And the headache's returned.

OK, you little yellow cocksucker: You win. I was wrong and you were right. I do not belong in your world, and I was trespassing with my big, loud, carbon-belching mower. I'm sorry! Uncle!

Can we call it quits now?