While making those preparations, I was buzzed by an unidentified flying insect which made a painful assault on the back of my ear. I suspected that I had been stung by something as I said something like, “Darn it, that hurts!”

I went into the house and went straight to the medicine cabinet and got supplies. I misted some Benadryl Spray on my ear and took half of a Benadryl pill. (I am not a doctor and whatever I say in this column is not to be considered medical advice. Further, I don’t receive any promotional fees from Benadryl. But if anyone from that company sees this, I’m willing to talk.)

I went back out to the garage to pick up where I left off in my yardwork preparations. I immediately caught sight of a wasp dancing on the inside of the garage entry door window. I went back in the house and reported to my wife that it was a wasp that had nailed me.

She told me where I could find a flyswatter. I told her I thought that I’d just open the door and shoo the wasp outside. She said, “Use the flyswatter.”

I asked, “So you think I should kill that little son-of-a-gun?” (or words similar)

She responded, “Yes!”

Years ago, when in elementary school, we used to each get a little, magazine-type publication called “The Weekly Reader.”

I remember that one time there was a story about Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa building a school or something. He was a world-renowned humanitarian.

The gist of the story was that Dr. Schweitzer stopped workers from dropping a post into a hole until he was able to rescue some sort of insect from the bottom of the hole. Suffice it to say, I was not Dr. Schweitzer last Saturday.

I did a little research. What I would call a run of the mill Sanpete wasp is most likely, without getting into technical names, a golden paper wasp.

I learned that my particular sting on Saturday ranks as Level 1 on the Schmidt sting pain index. Yes, there is such an index. And I’d prefer not to experience Levels 2, 3 and 4.

Justin Schmidt, an entomologist (a bug scientist) with the University of Arizona allowed himself to be stung more than 1,000 times for the sake of science. He died last year at age 75 from Parkinson’s disease.

Based on his voluntary experiences with being stung, he came up with the pain index. Here’s a few tidbits from the index, without getting too scientifically detailed.

Level 1: My paper wasp, fire ants, most small bees. The pain is usually 5 minutes or less.

Level 2: Schmidt used the Western honey bee as the base value of this level of pain. Yellowjackets, a category of wasp, fit into this level. The pain is said to be 5 to 10 minutes long. He has some great descriptions for the pain. When referring to the sting of a honey bee, he said, “The oven mitt had a hole in it when you pulled the cookies out of the oven.”

Level 3: This includes a variety of specialized venom wasps. Schmidt says: “…unrelenting hours of drilling into that ingrown toenail…”

Level 4: The highest level. The sting of a bullet ant is described as: “like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail imbedded in your heel.”

So, as you might imagine, after doing this research, I felt pretty lucky to have stayed in Level 1 on Saturday. Not being in a warrior wasp “flow of an active volcano for two hours” for me.

Those who are around me much know that I often say that the only thing I’m allergic to is pain. I’ve also added an allergy that my brother says he has acquired. That’s being allergic to the inside of coffins.

So oddly, on Sunday morning, the Sunday School teacher in the class I attended, asked the class, “What is pain?” There were several answers given by the class members. The conversation then turned to spiritual pain. I decided not to raise my hand and tell my recent sad, painful story.

I’ve been thinking that I now know better why Juab High School has the Wasps as their mascot. They like to put the hurt on their opponents. Wasatch High School up in Heber City has the Wasps as their mascot as well.

My advice to you Sanpete is to keep your distance from all manner of stinging insects. And remember that our wasps can sting more than once, unlike honey bees.

And, oh, by the way, my research would seem to indicate that all these stinging members of these insect families are females. And that’s all I have to say about that. — Merrill