M: Be careful, it's going to bite you!
Josie: It won't.
A: These ones bite hard.
Josie: Yes, I've heard, but this one is choosing to climb on me at its own volition, so it won't bite, it'd be awfully rude if he did.
Narrator: Josie was right, it was not a rude grasshopper that would climb all the way up her just to chomp at her unprovoked. It was a reasonable, levelheaded grasshopper that only looked for Josie's assistance to reach higher highs.
There are barely any wasps this summer, oh, but the mosquitoes.. I've noticed an inverse correlation between wasp and mosquito numbers in a given summer. The previous summer, a much drier, hotter one had all the wasps and none of the mosquitoes. As per the title of this post, I'm sure you've correctly deduced what kind of summer I'd rather prefer.
The only way I divide bugs is - in civilised bugs with manners and class, and the absolute assholes who think I'm food. I'm NOT food! I know I might be delicious, but, I repeat, I AM NOT food!
So there, that breaks down the core reason as to why a Josie is a wasp apologist. Because you can reason with them, they don't automatically blindly see you as a juicy stake ready to be devoured.
There. That's it. That's the post! ..but not really..
But to know how Josie got to the conclusion that wasps can in fact be reasoned with, we need a bit of a backstory. A backstory that starts with BEEEEEES.
Everybody knows by now that Josie loves, LOVES bees..
Back in the day when Josie was a smol creature dad got two bee hives, so me and sister got to claim ownership of one each. I learned a lot from my observations when going with dad to my bees vs sister going to hers. What I noticed first was that each hive seemed to take on the characteristics of their respective 'owners'. It was as if the bees copied your mood and reflected it right back at you like an emotional, energetical mirror, so I quickly learned that the most important thing was to remain calm and so my bees were calm as well.
Sister's bees - a whole different, nervous, defensive, overreacting, panicky story. And so sister stopped going to them altogether. Seeing that she wasn't going to them at all anymore, I tagged along to the other hive as well. It took quite a while to calm those bees down, but we got there eventually, so there was no longer any contrast in the 'character' of the two hives.
Armoured with this newfound wisdom of the importance of remaining calm, I soon enough noticed that the same applies to wasps. If you agitate them by swatting about and being scared, they sure as hell are going to be more likely to 'match your freak' and retaliate. So to those who think that wasps are just assholes, I'm afraid to break it down to you like this, but it might just be that they are only reflecting you back to yourself.
Sure wasps are going to be way more easily triggered than bees, and so one could argue that the problem is in their short-temperedness, but again bar a diplomatic faux pas resulting in a full-blown territorial dispute, this shouldn't be an issue - you see - wasps are easy that way - if you do not impede on their sovereignty they will not use the weapons at their disposal against you.
Now, when conducting such diplomatic relations properly, it is also wise to note which bugs carry what grade of weaponry. For example, I would not like to test the nuclear weapons that are in the arsenal of hornets on my own personal skin, so they get my deepest and utmost reverence at all times and circumstances. I will just kindly say Namaste, bow out of their path and leave them in peace.
But the bugs that look at you and see a delicious buffet.. there's no reasoning with them! Although there have been exceptions of successful peace treaties with one or two mosquitoes where I've laid down the ground rules of my room at night and those were as follows - We both go to sleep peacefully, you don't fly arround making noise and you don't eat me, if you can manage that - you live. If not, it's all lights on and a full on war, and I WILL find you and I WILL kill you, no matter how long it is going to take me.
But as I mentioned, there have been only like max 2 civilised mosquitoes that I've had the pleasure doing business with.
~Josie~