Sting operation

Some years ago, my mother sat on a wasp. The reactions of the rather startled insect notwithstanding, she was shocked out of her seat (in more ways than one) and exited the cane lounger she was trying to settle into post haste. She did get stung, but was mercifully dressed to minimise the effects – the wasp couldn’t get too far through her sari and petticoat and managed only to leave its sting in her skirts without touching her skin too much. The bug, of course, flew shakily away, muttering direly, out the window, to where it would not be sat on, one presumes.

But getting stung is not a joke. I once got attacked on – of all places – the toe. It’s a long story, so settle in and read…

I was living in my small but charming flatlet in Delhi. It was on the ground floor, a tiny apartment carved out of part of the main house. It had its own entrance and a small garden attached, where I would lounge, cat draped in attendance over my ankles, music plugged into ears, iced herbal tea at hand, basking in the afternoon sunshine, especially during the winter. The garden tended to grow fast, and was either a cool carpet of lush green or a soggy morass of monsoon-soaked turf. I would trot barefoot over it every morning as dawn cracked the day open, headed to get to the newspaper before the morning walkers could catch sight of me in my skimpy nightwear and sleep-frizzed hair. And I would wearily tramp across it to my front door every evening after a long day at work, cat dogging my steps, tripping me up as he told me about his day, the birds he chased, the cats he fought with and the dinner he was being so cruelly deprived of.

That same cat was the one responsible – sort of – for my insect adventure. He played outside much of the day and came in with me in the evening for his snack, cuddle and caterwaul. Then, as I had dinner, he would wander about in the park beyond the cul-de-sac and come back when he was called at about 7:30 at night, when it was dark and the cold got too much for him during the winter or when he was tired and wanted to be fussed over in the summertime. When my parents came to visit, his schedule had to change to adjust to two more people who spoiled him silly, and he wandered longer outside during the evening, being sure enough of constant attention even if he didn’t obey me.

Thus it was one night. Cat had done his affectionate duty by me, eaten his dinner and scampered out to play a little more. But it was time to go to bed for us humans and he had to be indoors before I could lock up for the night. The garden had just been watered and it was cool and refreshing. So cat lay there at the edge of the lawn, his head resting comfortably on a half-empty sack of cut grass, his long legs stretched across the just-planted rose beds. I called, he looked languidly up and lay back down. I yelled, and he merely shifted position to peek at me and then yawn as wide as only a cat can. Then, impatient and getting fed up, I tramped barefoot over the lawn to grab him. As he squeaked and patted my face with his paw, sniffing at my hair and going boneless in the way felines do when they are totally at ease, I felt a very sharp pain in one toe. I couldn’t drop the cat, or he would run away to play somewhere unfindable. I could not do more than say a sharp OW and then totter back into the house clutching cat and thinking very rude words.

There, the cat was dumped unceremoniously on the dining table, the door was slammed and locked shut and I was finally able to hop gingerly to the couch, twittering madly in distress and amazingly intense pain. Collapsing on the couch, I lifted my foot and examined my toe. There, embedded neatly in my second digit, was a small bee, its sting nicely jammed into the front of my toe. Closing my eyes, I pulled it out and flung it out of the small window, through the grill and opened mesh screen. Then I carefully plucked out the sting and looked at it – it resembled a small tack, and was sharp and hard enough to actually be one. My toe hurt so much I couldn’t feel it, and my whole foot was starting to throb violently. But nothing showed there – no redness, no swelling, none of the agony that I knew I was feeling. Ice did help, but only a little. So I was fed an antihistamine and slept through until morning. Mercifully it was not winter, so I did not need to wear socks and boots. I hobbled to work the next morning, trying hard to avoid putting any pressure on the toe as I walked into the office.

The pain subsided in a few days, lasting longer than I would have believed. But the tip of my toe went numb and then gradually, about a month later, shed a thick cap of skin that was an interesting patchwork of blue, black and a more normal brown. It was as if it had an identity crisis – to bee or not to be!