17: Never, never, never pick anything up outside without first looking at it carefully from top to bottom. Being that the item has been outside, you just don't know what's crawling on it, nesting under it, or perched on top of it.
Case in point.... I had noticed that the outside cats weren't sitting on the wicker chair that's in the cat-coop (basically our old chicken coop that's been turned into a screen-porch for the cats). I have old furniture in there so the cats have something to sleep in and climb on.... and that particular broken-leg wicker chair was always one of Mickey's favorites. And if Mickey wasn't napping in it, then Gatsby was sitting in it and looking through the fence and out into his kingdom. But the chair has been mysteriously empty since we got back from our trip.
It had rained while we were gone, and I thought maybe the blanket on the chair had gotten soaked and then started to give off a stale odor as it dried, which would make the cats keep away from it. So today I did a load of laundry, filling the washer with cat blankets and pillow-beds from inside and outside. When I took Mickey's blanket back to his favorite chair in the coop, I decided to move the chair to the other side of the coop now that it's been getting warmer, to keep it out of the hot afternoon sun.
Well, stupid me. Did I look closely at that chair before picking it up? No. I just picked it up by the arms and walked towards the opposite side of the coop. And as I did, I felt a sting on my right hand....... I dropped the chair and there was a small yellow-jacket sort of bee..... which had just stung my hand and seemed to be aiming again for my arm. I screamed and ran out of the coop, into the garage, and grabbed the first can of insect spray I could find, which happened to be the wasp spray.
Back into the coop I went, looking for that bee...... but before I found the bee, my eyes found a little nest of bees right underneath the arm of that old chair. Had I grabbed that chair just three inches lower, I would have had a palm-full of bees, and most likely a palm-full of stings. I sprayed that nest with about a quarter of the can of wasp spray, and at least a dozen bees fell dead to the concrete floor. So there!
18: Once something has been outside on the porch or in the yard, don't even think of bringing it back inside. Whatever you have brought outside is now an 'outside thing' forever.
19: When you scream, no one will hear you. So learn to take care of the crawling bugs and flying insects and whatever else is creeping or slithering around outside. And if you can't deal with that sort of stuff, then just keep your sweet self inside the house as much as possible.
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