What Goes Around, Comes Around

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in

Robert Frost

I saw a T-shirt last week which said, “Dear Karma—I have a list of people you missed.” I was instantly transported back to the day Son #3 lost his temper about something. He was furious and went storming downstairs with as much thunder as a pre-adolescent can manage.

Unbeknownst to his parents, he grabbed the steel barbell pole from our weight-lifting set and used it to ram as many as a dozen or more two-inch holes into the ceiling of his bedroom, fury fueling his assault on the drywall. Once he calmed down, he dropped the pole, ignored the mess, and went out to play—probably with the same brother/s who had originally generated his rage.

But Karma was coming. A day or two later, I heard a downstairs door slam and then screaming the like of which I had rarely heard from one of my children. My husband and I arrived at the bottom of the stairs simultaneously, both of us out of breath. Son #3 was standing in the hall sobbing and swatting at the air indiscriminately. “Hornets. Lots of hornets,” he blurted. I looked at my husband who glanced back at me. We could her an ominous buzzing coming from the bedroom.

Leaning against the door, my husband gingerly twisted the handle and pushed it open an inch or two. The volume of buzzing increased exponentially. Inside a swarm of angry insects battered beds, walls, and windows seeking a way out. A couple of sets of wings escaped the room before my husband managed to get the door secured again. “There must be a couple of hundred of them,” he said, staring pointedly at Son #3. “How’d they get in?”

An inspection of the exterior brick surface on the outside wall of the house provided the answer. The insects had eaten away at the exterior masonry caulking between a couple of the bricks and squirmed into the space between the brick, dry wall, and studs. They had built a very comfortable nest which grew exponentially with every hornet attracted by the weatherproof, predator-free environment. When Son #3 had punched holes in the ceiling, the hornets rose in a swarm, answering the siren call of the sun shining through the barbells gouges. They invaded in force. Two hundred turned out to be a seriously minimal estimate.

A bomb of insect repellent made the room uninhabitable for a day or two, and the four boys who slept there had to rough it on the living room floor. Hornet carcasses littered every surface in the room. Even clothes in the closets had to be rewashed, insect wings littering the floor on the path to the laundry room. Walking across the floor produced a disturbing crunching noise. For the first time in years, not a single son went anywhere near that room with bare feet.

The whole family pitched in to vacuum and scrub and wash before the room was livable again. But Son #3 learned a valuable lesson which he still practices to this day: managing your temper effectively can save you a veritable hornets’ nest of trouble. Literally.