It’ll be 28 degrees out today. Hot.

Soon it will be unbearable on the balcony. I plop the cushions onto my chair, quickly throw down Rusty’s mat so he can be comfortable and bring out my Kindle, soy yogurt with granola, and my homemade soy latte. At least I imagine that that’s what it would be called if you ordered my concoction at a fancy place for 5 bucks or more.

Come to think of it, nowadays the place doesn’t even need to be fancy for them to charge an arm and a leg for mediocre coffee.

Drinking that soy milk coffee at home has become a pretty sacred ritual I realize. It should be says my inner voice, for the price you pay for Nespresso.

I shut it up, because I am in no mood for negativity. I tried to let that all out during yesterday’s coaching session. 

Dead set on loosening up a little bit and on finding some of the joy back in the things I do, I have just returned from swim-drawing my initials in the Lauchsee, the local swimming fen. Feeling somewhat proud of my attitude adjustment, now is the time to savor that breakfast, the weather and the view.

The coffee is warm, hot even, but not piping hot. Half of my resentment towards overpriced coffees in cafes is because they arrive semi-cold the majority of the time.

I’m not having it.

I am not above reheating the soy-coffee-concoction in the microwave. For someone with such strong opinions on what coffee should be, I have no qualms about breaking the first commandment of coffee drinking: Thou shalt not reheat.

I laugh at my double standards. 

I have not even taken two full sips, when a wasp starts circling. I try to wave it off as one would an airplane that is to abort its landing, but somehow it decides to ditch.

A ball of yellow and black mows through the foam that drifts on top of my coffee.

What an idiot!

There’s no way I can let it drown or sink deeper into my already once reheated coffee, so I fish it out with a spoon and drop it onto the table.

I traipse inside to fetch a paper towel and place Willie on there to help her dry off. 

Her. The majority of wasps, the workers, are female, it transpires.

A swift Google search satisfied my sudden need to know.

I also deduce that Willie is a common wasp or vespula vulgaris.

Apparently, I now care for wasps. Truth be told, since learning that they help control mosquito and tick populations, I have a newfound appreciation for the little buggers.

I whip out my phone to record for all posterity that I am now only very few steps away from becoming a card-carrying member of Peta.

And then I put it away again. Because I am not sure what I am looking at here. Is this an animal in agony?  I definitely don’t want to be filming an animal suffering, in the midst of its death throes. I can barely stand watching.

As I debate the kindest action to take from here I continue to observe Willie on the paper towel hoping I haven’t done anything to hurt her further.

Meanwhile my inner voices are having a hoot commenting on the situation: 

It’s a  wasp! Are you serious?,

Hey, now, what do you mean? It’s a living being with feelings for goodness’ sake!

What’s so special about this one wasp anyhow?

And then I look closer and see that Willie’s random twitches and jerky movements aren’t that random after all. It looks like she is cleaning herself. Rolling onto her back and belly, curling and uncurling, using her legs and mouth to get rid of the gooey soy-coffee-concoction that’s covering her. I am reminded of a cat cleaning herself.

With her black antennas and yellow face markings she looks adorably cute.

I am reminded of Anty in the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids and of how my sister managed to wake up an entire night flight from Florida to Amsterdam with her screaming when he died. 

I’ll never know why the airline decided to show a kids movie on a night flight. This was before the onset of personalized inflight entertainment systems of course, back in the day, when everyone was supposed to crane their necks to catch a glimpse of monitors dangling from the ceiling in several most inconvenient locations. 

Maybe they knew all the adults would be sleeping and it was the kids they needed to appease? I am not sure they had counted on the kind of primordial sounds the onscreen death of an endearing insect could elicit in an empathic 10-year old however.

Willie is my Anty though and I am suddenly rooting for her to pull through, with her cute little Avengers mask.

As she cleans away every now and then her wings flutter and buzz. I pull out my phone again and record a little clip, suddenly sure that this little bee is channeling her inner Bear Grylls to come out of this ordeal a victorious survivor.

There’s only one thing to do which is to bring my laptop outside and work alongside Willie, making sure she doesn’t clean herself off the edge of the table before she’s ready to fly again.

When she curls up into a ball again, barely moving, only a leg vibrating, doubt creeps in again. How long before she gets exhausted? Is she seriously hurt? Did I hurt her legs accidentally? Is she dying after all?

The breaks get longer but after every pause Willie continues her cat-ritual.

I Google: How to help tired bees? 

While my societally conditioned inner critic mocks me, I prepare a plate of sugar water.  I can’t bring myself to put her on there, afraid she’ll end up covered in that stickiness as well, needing to expand even more energy she clearly is running out of.

It’s been 2.5 hours. How long should this take?

My stomach clenches. Not this wasp please…

When I come back from walking Rusty, Willie is gone. 

She’s no longer moving.

Damn it. I was so convinced she would make it. My inner voices get really loud.

Have I let her suffer needlessly? Made things worse?

My stomach clenches and suddenly I feel exactly like my sister must have done over 30 years ago. I want to scream and wake up the entire valley.

Over an endearing wasp who stole my heart on a warm summer morning in the mountains.