Self-Stung

There isn't much that I hate more than wasps. They're ugly, they're scary (I'll admit it), and when I was about 10 I got absolutely rocked by one right on my lower lip and it hurt worse than about anything I'd ever experienced. I really, really hate (and am scared of) wasps.

It just so happens, however, that our backyard is insanely infested with wasps. When I try to mow in the late morning, I can seriously stand and look at the back of our fence and count five or so within my range of vision at any given moment. If I bump a part of the fence with the mower, six or eight will fly up all disturbed and then disturb me in kind. It makes an unpleasant but not-unreasonable task into an absolute gauntlet of terror.

So how excited was I when my lovely bride tells me that she saw a trap at the store for $15? I went on-line to check them out and I was sold. It looked like there could be a hundred of those little devils inside a trap, and that's exactly what I was after, so we went for it.

After about a week, the trap was still wasp-free. I couldn't believe it. On the company's website, they like swarmed to it. So what do I do about the disappointingly impotent wasp trap? I did the only reasonable thing -- I went and bought another one. Now there are two traps with no wasps, and here's why this is discouraging for me:

The three principles of the situation, in order of intelligence:
1) The Wasps. They send me running scared and stay out of the traps.
2) The Trap Company. They sold me a product that didn't work, and then sold me another one.
3) Me. I'm still deathly afraid of the wasps, whose numbers have not been reduced by one despite my best efforts; and I've given the trap company my money twice for a product that hasn't worked once. The obvious conclusion? I'm a scared, broke moron.