Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Here to tell you about Texas radio and the big beat

At The (Old) Job today, the baby teacher, who is a young black woman, asked me to come into her room and kill a woss.

"A what?" I asked.

"A woss. It's on the Christmas tree," she said.

This did not elucidate anything. "You want me to kill a woss?" I asked, deliberately emphasizing the last sound.

"Yes."

"It's not, perhaps, a wasp?" I pressed on, popping the p.

"No," she answered, but a little confusion showed in her eyes as they searched mine.

With that clarification out of the way, I put fruity little scrunchy booties over my shoes and went in. (They keep the floor clean in the baby room.)

On the window, where a tiny paper Christmas tree was taped up, was indeed a wasp.

"Squish it," the teacher told me.

"I will, but it might sting my bare hand. I need something to squish it with."

The other teacher in the room offered me a latex glove.

"How exactly would that help?" I asked her, kindly not adding, "you idiot."

Anyway, I squished it with a wadded up tissue and flushed it down the toilet at the teacher's request, because she was afraid of its corpse being in the trash can. "I suppose it might sting after death," I said, "but are you really going to be rummaging around with your hand down in the trash?"

"Maybe," she said.

Well, that's the story of the woss.

Slow news day, I guess.

4 comments:

Churlita said...

How come they can't kill the woss themselves?

Chance said...

They are fragile women folk who doubtlessly would also be unable to shovel their own snow, if that ever needed doing around here.

daveawayfromhome said...

Or change a tire. My wife is the same way, apparently all bug-killing is a Man's Job.

Rachel said...

Actually, I take care of the bugs in my house, always have done. However, I always take them out alive (except for roaches and flies - they die). I have a master bug catching technique. I still think about this humongous spider I killed when I was a kid; I still feel badly about that.

Only wussy women need to have things killed for them.