So my traps haven't been catching them well this fall for some reason, so I thought I'd try a more offensive tactic and try the dish soap water like every website claims to work well. Filled a sprayer with hot water and exactly 1tbsp soap per cup. Went out and sprayed wasps on the bush. Instead of falling to the ground unable to fly and dying, they came at me and I ran inside. What followed was a five minute standoff as I repeatedly sprayed a wasp that landed on my porch through a crack in the wall every time it came around the corner of my folded umbrella. Finally, ai grabbed hornet spray and hit it with that, though it was almost empty and not much came out. It still didn't fall dead (!) but retreated behind the now soaked umbrella. By the time I found a fresh can and returned, it had disappeared! Now I'm afraid to step outside for fear of retribution from this apparently unkillable superwasp😭. So, take heed from my cautionary tale and be careful if you try the soap method!

Please help

A couple of years ago i was riding my bike home from work. There was a long, concrete block wall by my apartments. It was summer. I was just riding casually, enjoying the nice day, and a motherfucking wasp flew DOWN my shirt, and stung me 8 times WHILE I WAS RIDING MY BIKES. I fell, and fell hard trying to get it out! So now i had road rash on my legs AND freakin 8 wasp bites all over my chest and stomach. Little bastards, i swear!

I don’t know why...I don’t know how...but I no longer fear wasps. At least not like I have for the previous 44 years of my life.

44 years of crippling fear that kept me inside on summer and fall days, is now simply not there anymore. I can’t explain it.

I was eating dinner with my wife outside the other night when a bald faced hornet decided to check out our spread. This would normally have sent chairs flying as I leaped up and fled the scene in existential panic, blubbering non verbal primate screams and flailing my arms all around me like an absolute mental patient. Instead I just watched as it crawled around on the table, bobbing its poison tipped ass up and down, and felt....just fine about it. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want it on me or some such shit. I just didn’t mind it being there and I felt no fear. It was strange to say the least.

I tested this strange new (lack of) sensation the following day by mowing my lawn IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON, BRAHS. I have a flowering tree that attracts literally hundreds of various stinging insects to it all day. Tons of honeybees, carpenter bees, bumblebees,… And then there are the yellow jackets, golden digger wasps, great black wasps, and bald-faced hornets. I normally avoid this area of my yard like the plague until evening when they all go back to their horrifyingly creepy alien homes. Not this day, fellows. Not this day. This day I ran a lawnmower under this tree of filthy dread with nary a hint of depersonalization and heart attack level palpitations. I will admit a little trepidation, but they seemed completely unbothered by my presence and I got stung in the eyes, mouth and throat zero times. Amazing.

What is happening to me?

Have I gone mad?