I Just Wanted To Cool Down The Car...Not Kill A Bunch Of Wasps

Growing up, I lived across the street from where I now live. With my father passing away when I was young, my mother raised three kids on her own and sometimes we didn't have a lot of money when things needed to get fixed. For example, the A/C unit at home died and wasn't fixed for several years. We just camped out in a back room and used fans. We got by. The same thing happened to the cars we had. Many times, there was no A/C. Again, we got by.

What does this have to do with killing a bunch of wasps?

Good question.

This past week has been the warmest of the year so far. It usually gets warm in Utah in the summer--where we live it's not so warm you die if you're outside too long, but warm enough. And because it's so warm, I try and park my car in the shade, if possible. I guess it's holdover from when we didn't have any A/C at home or in our cars.

This week, because it was so hot, I decided to crack the car windows about half an inch to let the heat out so when I climbed in around 5pm, it didn't feel like the seventh level of Hades. Even though my car has pretty good A/C, for a couple of days it helped, but yesterday, when my daughter and I climbed in to go to rehearsal, I noticed a dead wasp on the back seat. First I made sure it was dead, then I tried to brush it off the seat and out of the car.

That's when I saw another dead wasp in the window.

I then saw two more dead insects at the base of the window.

I then saw several others dead on the floor.

Uh oh, I thought. I wondered if there was a wasp nest somewhere in the car. It's happened before when I've parked a car for a few months. But I've been driving this car everyday. There couldn't be a nest in the car. Then it hit--lowering the windows allowed the bugs to fly in and they couldn't get out. It was so hot they fried.

I have a general rule about bugs, especially those that bite and sting. I'll try not to bother them in their house (outside), if they stay out of my house (inside). I'm not sure how that applies to the situation with the bugs and my car, though. I know I don't want to fry any more wasps like that. I guess I'll just be a little more uncomfortable until the car cools down.