to bee or not to bee

This month a committee of yellowjackets built a 16-inch-diameter nest in the eaves of the second story of our house.
My neighbor and I decided yesterday that calling someone to come and take it down was likely to be
a) expensive, and
b) a sign that we were total pansies.

So today we went to the hardware store and bought a couple cans of wasp spray.
Then we made ourselves beekeeper hats out of gardening felt, an old window screen, and duct tape.
I told the neighbors what I was doing, so they could keep their kids indoors for a little while.
I called my wife at her exercise class to warn her to stay away from the house for 1/2 hour. With great difficulty I disengaged from her many questions about how I thought I was going to do it, why I was doing it (actually, "You're going to try to do it yourself?"), and her skepticism about our plans and our wisdom it attempting the task.

NOTE FOR WIVES: Always be sure to grill your husband about the jobs he undertakes. Demand that he run his plans by you first. The more questions, the better. Best of all is advice or outright orders about how to do it -- and make sure the subtext of your questions/comments sounds like "I think you are stupid and incapable." This will endear you to him and make him feel lucky to have you, since we all like to be made to feel inadequate.

Of course, this advice goes for both genders, but it's especially apropos when we're talking about how to handle men. Women seem to be more about being, men about doing -- men's lives are defined in larger measure than women's are by our actions. I think in part that explains why most of us want two main things from our wives: affection and approval. If you're stingy with either one, we fairly quickly lose our inclination to romance you, woo you, adore you. Conversely, if you're generous with those two things, most of us won't care that much how educated you are, how well-spoken, how successful, how talented, how well you cook, how much money you make/spend, how you handle the house, how you do your hair, or whether you're a few lbs juicier after having kids. Give me love and appreciation, baby, that's what I need.
Just my take on things...

Anyway, we used the wasp spray, which barely reached the nest. Then we got the water hose and sprayed the nest until most of it fell into pieces and off the house.
I scraped the rest off with a rake on an extension pole.
Then I climbed up on a ladder and cleaned off the rest of the nest with the hose.
The neighbor went home, we cleaned up, Hannah came home and was pleased no disasters had happened.

The End. I didn't say it would be interesting.