Fun with bees

Whenever I am riding a motorcycle at a very high speed and I happen to be wearing a full face helmet, I always have this really irrational fear that if I have the face shield up, a bug will fly into my helmet. Which for me, would be absolutely devastating, as I have an intensely irrational fear of bugs. And probably the death of me, since I would most certainly begin wildly flailing about, causing me to end up in a crumpled heap on the pavement. Probably with an exploded brain.

So I drive with that thing down. No face bugs for me.

Except for somehow, while traveling down a country road in northern Idaho at about 80 mph, a bee managed to infiltrate my closed helmet. A damn bee. Traveling 80. On a motorcycle. My worst nightmare. EVER.

It becomes a little difficult to pay proper attention to the road, while staring at a bee perched an inch away from your eye. He just sits there, this bee, staring at me. I decided right then, that as long as he wasn't actually attacking my face, I could keep my composure. The problem then, was deciding how to remedy the situation. He seemed somewhat content to just sit there and pierce my heart with fear, at least for the moment. I began to weigh my options. Do I pull over, and attempt to rip the helmet off of my head? What if he gets pist when I slow down and starts attacking my face? What if I can't remove my helmet quickly because it is STRAPPED TO MY HEAD? Should I open the face shield and hope he escapes? What if he is then simply blown into my face, and consequentially begins attacking it?

I decided that opening the face shield was my best bet. Upon doing so, he was blown out the bottom of my helmet, and I was left thinking, "WHAT THE HELL." Because this was the SECOND attack of the day. By a bee. You see, about 2 hours earlier, while pulling into a gas station, I was stung on my right arm. Which taught me 2 things; 1 being, I am apparently not allergic to bee stings. Cool. And 2, while bee stings hurt, they are not the end all, monumentally painful experience that I had always assumed. Cool again. But I'm still afraid of them.

Why did the bees have it out for me? I swear I haven't killed a bee in years. All that wasn't even the end of it.

A couple hours later, I was in the sorriest Subway on planet earth. They had no 9 grain honey wheat, no spinach, no chicken breast, no swiss, and their high speed toaster oven was broken down. WTF. As I was contemplating which bread to substitute for the 9 grain, I felt something itchy in my side. I reached down, and could feel a small ball of something in my shirt. Suddenly, that small ball of something stung me, at which point I freaked out and began to violently shake my shirt. Lo and behold, another bee.

Why did every bee in that state want to kill me? I made it nearly 27 years having never been stung, and then I was attacked thrice in one day. I have a sneaking suspicion that bee #3 might have actually really been bee #2. I think he might have, after being blown from my helmet, crawled down my shirt and hitched a ride for a couple of hours. He probably fell asleep, and then when I touched him in Subway, became grumpy because I woke him up. At which point he stung me for the second time in my adult life.

Asshole.