This is a story I have been hearing from my dad since I was old enough to properly register things I heard. I've had questions about some of the details, but my mom fully corroborates its veracity* (if not without a small sigh and a shake of the head), so I have to either believe that it's true, or that my parents have been playing a very stupid prank on me for twenty years.
I'd prefer to believe it's true, for obvious reasons.
THE STORY OF THE NUCLEAR FLAMING BEES
Way back before I was born, my parents (who were not yet my parents) and a bunch of their friends attempted to go camping on Lake Michigan. I say "attempted" because they set off really late in the day and neglected to phone ahead to any campgrounds to hold a spot (and, oh yeah, it was a weekend near the end of summer so everyone in the world was camping), and by the time they actually got to Lake Michigan at around 10:30 at night, every campground was full.
Except one, which was suspiciously empty. However, everyone was exhausted, and no one thought to point out just then how weird it was that a campground right on Lake Michigan was almost completely empty at the peak of camping season.
And honestly, if they had, someone else probably would've just told them to shut up.
Anyway, like I said, they were all really tired (20-somethings apparently didn't stay up until 5 am in those days, because there was no Internet), so they set up their tents without a second thought and drifted off to sleep. . .
. . . and were rudely awoken (probably with shouts of "F**K WHAT IS HAPPENING") at six the next morning by the soothing sounds of a blaring klaxon, and an amplified voice burbling the words: "THIS IS A . . . . . . . OF THE. . . . . . . NUCLEAR POWER FACILITY."
Yes, they had apparently parked their tents and food and frail, radioactivity-sensitive human bodies across the way from a nuclear power plant. Remember, those actually used to be a thing.
Once the initial shock wore off (and the reason they were the only people at this campground had suddenly been made perfectly clear), my parents and their friends conferred and decided that, rather than hoof it around the coast again only to be told that no, sorry, no one had packed up and left in the last six hours so they were still S.O.L., they would make the best of it here. After all, it was still a campsite, right? There was water, and there were trees, and they were still sleeping on the ground, and wasn't that what camping was all about?
Yes. I know. Like I said, you need to remember that nuclear power plants used to be a thing.
After breakfast they decided to go for a swim in the Lake. All my Michigan readers-- which is to say, with one possibly notable exception, all of you-- have you ever been in Lake Michigan? It's like, really cold, right? Like, winter-in-Michigan-and-it's-not-even-winter cold?
Well on this day, in 1980-mumble, when a nuclear power facility stood on one of its shores, Lake Michigan was as warm as a bowl of takeout Panera soup. There was a lot of skeptical toe-dipping, and after about half an hour of "You go in." "I'm not going in, you go in", the only person brave enough to wade into the water and take a decent swim was my dad's friend Nick, a great big man who has looked exactly like a lion (with a mane and scruffy beard to fit) for as far back as I can remember. This earned him the name Nuclear Nick, which stuck, but I'm sure he's okay with that.
This wasn't really a necessary part of the story, but that's how I always heard it and I like having it in there.
Later, after their swim-- or rather, Nick's swim and their spectating-- they returned to their campsite and were just beginning to scarf down on some lunch when they heard a loud angry buzzing, like a motorcycle, coming from fairly close by. They looked for the source of the noise, and down by one of their feet they saw (and my dad always tells this part the same) "a hole in the ground, and next to it, a cicada wasp as big as your thumb."
Then he holds up his thumb and waggles it, in case anyone had any doubts about the size.
With a sinking feeling, because wasps are not known to be solitary creatures, they looked around and saw dozens more of these holes, many of them with huge wasps in or around them.
Now, if this were me or almost anyone I know, I wouldn't have cared how long I'd been planning this trip, or how long it would take to find another campground or get home; my shit would be in the car and I'd be gone. There would be literally no time between seeing all those bees and me driving away. Whoever was with me could stay there and figure it out for themselves.
As you might have guessed, these guys did not fall into that camp. That night, the men hatched a plan. I don't know what the women were doing; I assume they were either asleep, or telling the men what a terrible idea this was. I can tell you that if my mom was awake she was probably rolling her eyes so hard she got permanent retinal damage, so if she was awake, shame on you, Dad, Nick, Mark, and Kurt if you were there. Shame on you for making my mom need glasses.
Anyway, they hatched a plan, and the plan went like this:
Cicada wasps make tunnels in the ground. Each hole is an entrance to one of those tunnels, which in turn leads to all other tunnels. If you did it at night, when the wasps were all drowsy and in their tunnels, you could squirt some lighter fluid into a couple holes, drop a match in one, and poof! No more bees.
The plan worked pretty well. . .
. . . up to a point.Because this did not kill the bees. It just made them really pissed off. And on fire.
(I had a lot of fun drawing this one.)
They rose out of their holes in a fiery swarm, each giant bee made even larger by the ball of blue flame engulfing it, collectively buzzing like a gang of bikers (the bikes, not the actual bikers).
This could have ended really badly, but the fire seemed to disorient the bees just enough that they didn't go for the campers, or the tents-- they just flew up and into the night, their angered buzzing growing more distant as the distinctly Gygaxian form disappeared over the trees. As they watched the bees retreating, presumably never to return, my dad put his arm around my mom and thought,
"This is gonna be a really cool story to tell my daughter."
THE END
*In one final attempt to find out if this was in fact a true story, or if by telling this I would just be pulling the same elaborate prank on my readers that my parents played on me, I verified it with my mom before posting this. She swears it's true. Mom, I'm trusting you here; you better not tell me it was a lie when you're on your deathbed. Dad, that goes for you as well.
**If he was there. I've always heard this story with Kurt in it, and besides, I couldn't deprive you all of Kurt's hair, which is FACTUALLY ACCURATE and really fun to draw.
