Not So Bad Dad

The weekend prior to buying the [wrong] shoes, we were getting ready to watch a DVD, but I was checking my email first.

From the other room I heard Daughter shrieking, and as I jumped up from my chair, I saw her, with Sienna, walking toward my bedroom.

"What happened?"

"[Sob]...bit...[sniffle]...me..."

Knowing Sienna never bites, I asked "What bit you?"

"The bug."

Turns out she'd gone into the kitchen to make a candy dish before the movie, and in the dark had stepped on a Texas red wasp (we'd been battling a series of them in the house) that was on the floor.  They're normally not particularly aggressive, but I suppose they get a mite irked when stepped on.

In my role of Dr. Dad, I examined her foot, right between the ball and the arch.  There was a small mark, but no swelling, so at least I knew we didn't have an allergy problem.  Also, I was pretty sure there was no stinger left behind.

I ran a couple inches of bath water with some colloidal oatmeal powder - she soaked her foot for five to seven minutes, after which she said it felt better.  (It must have, as later on, we went for a late night bike ride - her request - with no complaints.)  While soaking the foot, she instructed me to find the wasp and kill it in a slow, deliberate way.  (I think women are more sadistic/Schadenfreudian than men - but then, I wasn't the one who'd been stung...)

I managed to swat the insect with a broom, and then crushed it with a shoe.  I brought the body for Daugher to see.

"Cut its head off, Daddy."  I pulled out my pen-knife, and cut the head portion.

"Cut off its rear end."  I mostly severed the insect, just aft of the thorax.  The stinger, about 2mm, continued reflexively retracting about every 30 seconds or so for a while, revealing that it was not in Daughter's foot.  Finally, after examining the lifeless - and in almost three pieces - body, my young Quincy M.E. pronounced the creature properly dead, and requested that it be flushed down the toilet.

I can't be Superman.  But maybe, for a couple more years or so before she's a teenager, I can be Sir Lancelot with a flyswatter.