How I almost killed someone

I have a well-documented distaste for bees and wasps and other stinging flying insects. Probably bordering on a phobia. Few things scare me as much as bees/wasps. So I was dismayed to find one flying around the attic at work.

I work at the Durham Town Hall, a place that in and of itself could give me stories to fill many volumes. But people are nice to me, and the work is pretty easy, so not much to complain about there. The Town Hall itself is a building that was actually built in the 1860s, and so it's well overdue for some major renovating. So that's why I'm still working there - to help them get their shit in gear for the big move. I organize stuff and box it and move it around to the places they tell me to.

I was in the attic, trying to make a dent in the inordinate amount of useless crap that has been thrown up there for lack of a better place. Seriously, you wouldn't believe what was up there. The following is a list of random ass shit that I have found just in the attic (never mind the rest of the Town Hall)...

-Paintings from the 19th century
-7 boxes of green carpet squares
-Voter records from the late 1700s
-Wool army blankets
-Cones
-Dot-matrix printers circa before-I-was-born
-Tape reels of town committee meetings circa 1950s
-An entire box of town road crew time cards from 1986
-Someone's Eagle Scout project
-Ping-pong balls
-24 Geiger counters

That's just what I can remember - I've been working there the past three summers, and I'm sure I've found things a damn sight weirder than the abovementioned items.

Anyhow, I was up there in the attic moving shit and this yellow jacket whizzed by my head. I thought to myself, it's you or me you fucking piece of shit yellow jacket. So I grabbed the thing nearest to me that made sense to swing at it (hopefully I'll get a picture of it pretty soon).

Yes, a rolled-up planning and zoning map. Pliable enough not to break anything and big enough to smash the little fucker. I went on the attack, muttering "Die motherfucker," to myself. Little did I know I came damn near close to killing someone.

I made a most dire underestimation of my own strength, the inflexibility of the rolled-up map, and the strength of the 19th-century window pane. I knocked out a 150-year-old window pane.

Keep in mind though, this is the attic. Three floors up. My first thought is "Oh, shit... I hope no one was out there...." So I busted my ass down two flights of stairs, and ended up outside on the front landing wondering, holy shit, who did I just give a lobotomy with falling shards of glass? I walk outside, and to my delight, no one is running around with glass stuck into their bodies or anything.

But, there are people outside. Three of them. Volunteers from the local Garden Club planting pansies and such in the boxes that overhang the edge of the landing out front. One of them asks "Um, did you drop something?" I reply, "Yes, actually, I did... where is..." And then I saw it. A 9" fucking super-shard of glass stuck into the flower box. See the picture of the window?



Yeah, that entire piece stayed contiguous and ended up sticking IN THE FLOWER BOX TWO FEET FROM THE VOLUNTEERS. Not laying mind you, STUCK INTO THE DIRT AT A 90 DEGREE ANGLE WITH THE DIRT ITSELF. Needless to say, if those volunteers had moved two feet to their left, one of them would have been very very seriously wounded, if not dead.

The people I work with all were like, yeah, you didn't hurt anybody and this place is getting torn down and rebuilt in a few weeks anyways... so "meh." One of my coworkers even wondered why I didn't wait to do such a thing until someone she didn't like was on their way in or out. And in case anyone was wondering, the bee escaped during the fracas.