Why you shouldn't poke the hornet's nest

Reminded me of a childhood episode I'd mostly forgotten.

Neighborhood buddies and I were goofing around one summer day (I was, like, 6 or 7 but times were simpler and we were allowed to roam our block). One has a bow & arrow and we go into his garage, where there's a wasp's nest in the rafters. He shoots at it as we're all looking up and damn if doesn't hit it. And damn if that thing doesn't fall loose from the wood beam and land smack on my head.

Seventeen freakin' wasp's stings ensue on my head. In the immediate aftermath, my best pal at the time went rushing to my house screaming "Mommy! Mommy!" even though it was MY mom he was seeking. Meanwhile, I ambled home in pain, rubbing my head, not entirely sure what those bastards had done.

Family doctor made a house call (simpler time, remember) and told my parents it could have been a lot worse if I'd been allergic or something. "Just" 17 painful stings -- I recall lying around for a couple days with an ice bag constantly on my noggin.

Hate those wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, whatever you call them, to this day.

 

Wow, similar childhood story here: My best friend and I were taking turns jumping across a ditch, since that was big fun for 8-year-olds back then. Seems like we kept jumping to the same spot, but then Jimmy landed smack-dab on a hornets' nest.

Jimmy came out of that ditch like he was on fire, and what sticks in my mind is the sight of him running past me and down the road to his house at full gallop, screaming "Mom! Mom!" with a giant cloud of hornets around his head and the rest of the swarm chasing after him.

Must have been 200 hornets in that swarm. Didn't see Jimmy for a couple of days, but he was OK after that. Said the doctor at the hospital counted 65 stings.

Not one hornet came after me, and I was 10 feet away when it all blew up.

 

Similar story:
Playing army in the woods behind the house. We are traipsing through the laurel bushes with me out front.
I step in a ground hornet's nest.
First one stings left eyelid, which is significant because I can only blink my right eye.
So right off the bat, I am essentially blinded, stuck in the thick underbrush of laurels and getting tore up by bees.
I am screaming and the neighbor lady who lives above the woods heard us. She was picking beans. Startled by the screams, she threw her beans all over the garden. She came down and escorted me to house.
I had 17 bee stings. The two other kids with me got stung like twice.
I Spent the rest of the day in my room being treated with ice, and I think meat tenderizer (that mom put on my wounds).