NO STINGERS ALLOWED

I spent most of this weekend alone working, which is what I usually do when my kids aren’t here. Apparently, when left unsupervised, I do not rest. I just move my laptop to different surfaces and call it a weekend. As we speak it is 3 AM Monday morning, I have made my way through 26 civil case files, 16 criminal pleas set for this morning along with website and phone system changes. I did finally get a shower too, though sleep seems to no longer be an option for the night.

I also quit smoking several years ago. Then, a few months ago, my life exploded, and somewhere among the rubble I picked cigarettes back up. I am currently trying to quit again, although I would be lying if I said I was trying particularly hard.

So this afternoon I was sneaking outside to engage in one of my poor life choices when I noticed the wasps. And listen, these motherfuckers know me. There is one particular wasp that I first noticed yesterday, and I am now convinced he has been assigned to me personally. He comes to the glass door and just stares inside. Yesterday, we stared each other down through the glass for an uncomfortable amount of time. He knew I was scared. I knew he knew I was scared. There was no reason for either of us to pretend otherwise.

At some point, I tried spraying him with Lysol because I did not have wasp spray. That did not kill him. It merely offended him, and he came at me harder. So I placed a Walmart order and, naturally, added wasp spray. Problem solved. Except the Walmart delivery person dropped all of my groceries at the back door, where the wasps live, instead of the front door. Enemy territory.

I left those groceries outside for nearly two hours because I decided I would wait until after dark. I have no scientific evidence supporting this decision, but I have personally concluded that wasps are less capable of locating Judith Hampton after sunset. When it was finally dark enough, I prepared for battle, and by “prepared for battle,” I mean I put on every layer of clothing I could find, covered my hands, wrapped a blanket over my head and made absolutely certain there was not one square inch of exposed skin available for attack.

Then I opened the door, ran outside, grabbed as many grocery bags as humanly possible, yelped, ran back inside and slammed the door. Then I regrouped and did it again. And again. And again. At some point during this operation, I realized what this must look like to my neighbors: a grown woman wrapped in a blanket, repeatedly bursting from the back door of her house after dark, grabbing groceries, squealing and sprinting back inside like someone was firing live ammunition at her. They probably think I’m crazy, which, in fairness, is not entirely inaccurate.

Later, driving to the store, I started laughing about it and thought: no stingers allowed. Because this has apparently been my policy for most of my life. There are a lot of things I will fight. I will argue with a grown-ass man. I will stand my ground when I probably should not. I have walked willingly into courtrooms, ugly situations, impossible conversations and circumstances that would make perfectly reasonable people say, “You know what? Somebody else can handle that.” But put a flying insect near me with a stinger attached to its ass? Absolutely the fuck not. Every man for himself.

This fear goes back as far as I can remember. When I was little, my brother was playing baseball at the Union Parish ballpark. I wasn’t even old enough to play yet. I was just there doing whatever little sisters do at baseball parks when they are too young to actually participate, and I got stung. I had an allergic reaction. Nothing life-threatening, but my whole arm swelled up, it hurt like hell, and apparently my developing brain filed that experience permanently under: we will never be doing that shit again. And I have honored that commitment ever since.

If one of my children were standing beside me when a wasp appeared, of course I would save the child. But I need everyone to understand that I would save that baby quickly. I would gently place her somewhere safe and immediately abandon her because Mama is RUNNING. There are times in life when I wish my fight-or-flight response would calm the hell down. This is not one of those times. When it comes to stingers, I fully support flight.

I used to run track. At one point in my life, I stood at LSU’s track stadium as the third-fastest girl in the state of Louisiana. That girl still lives somewhere inside this nearly forty-year-old body. She is mostly retired, but apparently a wasp can reactivate her immediately.

And somewhere between laughing about my ridiculous grocery-retrieval operation and driving through town tonight, I realized that maybe “no stingers allowed” applies to more than bugs these days. I have spent a lot of time lately hiding out in my house when I do not have to be anywhere, working through weekends and keeping some distance between myself and the rest of humanity. People have made me a little skittish. Life has too.

I have been stung enough lately that sometimes I catch myself watching people through the metaphorical glass door the same way I watched that wasp, wondering what they are doing there, whether they are going to hurt me and whether I should let them get any closer. And maybe there will come a time when I stop expecting every person who gets close enough to have a stinger. I hope so.

But apparently, for right now, my nervous system has adopted a very simple screening policy: no stingers allowed. Bug or human. And if I see one, this bitch is gonna run.

Judith L. Hampton

Attorney at Law

Hampton Law Firm, LLC

Sometimes the law is what we do. Sometimes life is what we write about.

Read more from Thoughts Outside the Office at HamptonLawLA.com.