Wasp Sent from God

I’m not a religious man but I’m definitely not an Atheist Thumper, either. What you choose to believe is your business and I’m generally okay with that as long as you respect my beliefs. Or lack thereof.

I’m sure then that it must seem more than a bit ridiculous for me, a devout Atheist, to say that a wasp sent from God stung me on my middle finger while visiting a religious Mecca in Ireland! I should have taken a picture of it to show people. And why exactly did He choose my middle finger? Was He trying to tell me something? No idea. But it happened and it really hurt!

But why would God send this wasp to carry out His wrath upon me anyway? I’d like to think I’m a nice guy most of the time. It seems pretty clear to me the blame for this falls firmly at the feet of an artist friend named…well…Mary…as it turns out!

At the time, I was living in an apartment in Medford, Mass with a beautiful mantel in its foyer. The mantel, once likely used as a fireplace to heat the apartment, had long since been closed and was now just a nice decoration. The white tiles had been stenciled with the words Faith, Hope, Peace, and Love. Mary tried to spark my DIY punk rock attitude and told me that I had to paint those tiles over. Preferably, painted black.

“I’m not painting over these,” I said, fully aware that I was letting laziness win out over DIY punk rock.

“Well,” she said. “You’re going to have to embrace them then!”

I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I had only moved in to the apartment a few days earlier and still had tons of unpacking to do. Laziness felt like heaven!

 

A few days later Mary gave me a Jesus piggy bank with “Jesus Saves” written across the front of it as well as some Jesus pencil toppers. I was confused but they made me laugh. A Jesus Saves Piggy Bank? Oh, the irony!

“It’s for your mantel,” she grinned.

“My mantel?” I laughed.

“Yes,” she said. “You chose to embrace it, so there you go!”

“Okay, then!” I said. Completely confused.

Over the next few years, Mary gave me all kinds of Jesus paraphernalia every Christmas and birthday to add to My Jesus Mantel, as my friends dubbed it. I now had TWO Jesus piggy banks. A “Jesus Shaves” Mug which boasted his beard “disappears” and he “gets cheeky” when it’s filled with hot water, plus more Jesus pencil toppers than I could count. Jenny, her roommate, found a hilarious postcard of two billboards for My Jesus Mantel; one billboard in the background said “Christ Died for Our”, presumably Sins, and a “Dunkin Donuts” billboard placed perfectly in the foreground. You guessed it! She found a postcard that implied “Christ Died for Our…Dunkin Donuts”! There were Jesus Air Fresheners, a Jesus bobble head doll, and a Jesus pen, with the inscription “From the Religious Write.”

At one point I asked Mary why Jesus? She thought there was a Jesus stencil mixed in with the Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace ones. There wasn’t. I checked. Either way, my spiritual mantel had become My Jesus Mantel, full of brilliant irreverence that made me laugh every time I walked past it, and I had most definitely embraced it!

 

The night before I finally incurred God’s wrath in the form of a stinging wasp, my nephew Chris and I discovered that if you’re staying in a hotel in Ireland it is considered your home for that evening. The hotel will continue to serve you in the lobby even after their bar had closed. A sweet, poor old gentleman who seemed to be about 101 years old and moved at a snail’s pace served about 8-10 of us in the hotel lobby after the bar closed. We thought it best to ask for two pints at a time when he checked if we needed anything in an effort to save time. We offered to help him out but were told only he was allowed to go back in to the closed bar. Our night ended around 3 am.

 

The tour bus left bright and early the next morning and the first stop on the itinerary was the Marian Shrine and Basilica in a town called Knock. Chris and I preferred to be surprised by the daily destinies on our Ireland trip so we rarely checked our itinerary in the morning and this day was no different. The Shrine was in the center of this very small village that seemed to pop up out of nowhere and, judging by the size of the massive parking lot, this was clearly a very important destination for many Irish Catholic pilgrimages.

Evidently, there was a vision of the Virgin Mary on a wall at the Basilica, which had been blessed by a visiting Pope some years later. Catholics have flocked there for over 100 years to pray in absolute silence as they walked around the wall three times to absolve their sins. At least, that’s how this very hung over Atheist mind understood it. I might not have remembered any of that correctly.

Chris and I roamed the grounds and tried our best to be respectful. We stayed out of the way of people deep in prayer and only made polite eye contact with those who seemed to invite it. The silence, however, was deafening to our hung over brains and I felt like a kid in church again. I thought if I laughed or smiled at the slightest thing, I’d start uncontrollably giggling like a schoolboy for hours and everyone around me would be offended. Offending people was not part of our plan on this particular day. We both sought more caffeine and decided to scope out the village. Especially after Chris took his jacket off under the mid morning sun and we both discovered he was wearing a concert shirt from the metal band, Lamb of God.

 

Two older couples sat in separate booths in an open-air coffee shop and looked like they had dressed for Sunday church even though it was Thursday morning. One couple appeared to be thrilled they had made the pilgrimage and their entire year was made. While the other couple looked like they hadn’t smiled in ten years.

We skipped most of breakfast that morning due to our respective hangovers and tried to sleep in as late as we could. At the coffee shop Chris ordered a cup of coffee, I ordered tea, and we both grabbed a pastry and sat down. It felt good to be able to take a deep breath without worrying we would disturb someone’s silent prayer. At last, we were able to talk and laugh for the first time since we got off the bus.

One of the couples from our trip walked in and showed us the merchandise they bought at the Shrine’s Souvenir Shop. They had Virgin Mary statues, holy water bottles, and jewelry.

“This place is great!” the woman exclaimed, as she and her husband ran back to the Shrine.

“Chris!” I said, after they walked away. “We’ve been looking at this place all wrong!”

“Oh, yeah?” he smirked.

“Yes!” I said. “This place could be amazing! We need to find that gift shop! Just think of the stuff we could get for My Jesus Mantel!”

It was at that precise moment that God had clearly had enough. I felt an itch on my finger and scratched it. It was a Wasp Sent from God!

“FUCK!” I yelled louder than I’d ever yelled anything in my life as the wasp stung me! I leapt out of my seat. I shook my hand hysterically to get him off and flung him on to the next table. He spun around to face me, rubbed his eyes with his front legs, looked me in the eye and nodded his head up and down in slow motion. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or telling me, yes, God had had enough blasphemy from you today.

The older, happy couple jumped up to help while Chris had burst out laughing and immediately looked away. I had told him earlier on the trip how the one and only time I’d ever been stung by a bee was as a kid. I’d felt an itch on my finger and scratched it only to find it was a bee. I wanted to show him that hurt middle finger for laughing at me but my hand doesn’t really work that way. Plus, I was pretty sure he got a lot of his irreverence from me and laughing was probably what I would have done, too.

“Did you get stung?” asked the happy, older gentleman. He looked to the kid behind the coffee counter. “This guy just got stung by a wasp! Do you have any vinegar?”

Evidently, they put vinegar on wasp stings in Ireland to get the stinger out. I was always taught that mud or baking soda worked but I guessed vinegar would work, too.

The kid behind the counter gave me a napkin with vinegar on it to place on my finger.

I thanked the older, happy couple for helping me and walked back to the table. I felt terrible for swearing so loudly in such a peaceful place and apologized to the couple that hadn’t smiled in ten years. They still didn’t smile. Instead, they ignored me, sternly glared into each other’s eyes and exited the coffee shop without even acknowledging me or speaking a word to each other. I wanted to fake a sneeze to see if I could at least get a God Bless You out of them but I feared my flippant attitude might just bring about more of God’s Wrath.

 

We bumped into the bus driver on the way back to the bus and told him what happened. He dug out a cure for bee stings from his first aid kit that looked like a dried out lip balm. He told me to just keep rubbing it on my finger and it would help. It didn’t. The dried out bee sting lip balm only irritated it more. Clearly, God was still mad at me, maybe for the thought about the fake sneeze?

“We’ve had a very wet summer this year,” the driver announced to everyone on the bus as we pulled out of the parking lot. “And that means we have some angry wasps so if anyone gets stung, go see Mr. Kennedy. He has the bee sting medicine for you.”

“Did you get stung?” asked the woman who scored at the souvenir shop.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “I have the fix for that.”

She jumped out of her seat and bee-lined straight for me.

“Let’s just put some holy water on that!” she exclaimed.

Before I could tell her that I was fine she grabbed my hand and splashed holy water on it.

All I could think of when she started to rub holy water on my middle finger was the scene from The Exorcist when they threw holy water on little Linda Blair’s possessed body as she screamed how much it burned!

Of course, it didn’t burn so I figured I had survived God’s Wrath for the day.

Chris immediately snickered like only a devout Atheist being offered holy water for a wasp sting on a middle finger could and turned his gaze out the window so not to be seen laughing. Again, I wanted to show him that middle finger!