The Season of the Bees

PSA

The Kona Days

Vol II

As the snow coning went on, the job proved to be harder than Richard initially thought.  It wasn't all just playing cell phone games and watching flag football.  It was driving around the same neighborhoods week after week, stopping the truck for the same little deadbeats every time even though he knew they had no money.  It was dealing with parents who, after ordering eleven snow cones for the kids on their block, tipped him fifty cents, only to ask for it back to pay for kid #12 who, upon further review, brought his own money, leaving the fifty cents unused, and available to re-tip Richard.  

And then, there were the bees... 

The bees that made Richard question his very being, and life, and religion.  Every event that Richard parked at must have been on top of an underground hive because within minutes of serving the first cone, the truck would be swarmed with hundreds of bees, sucking up flavors and landing on the hands and hair of his young customers, sending them squealing back into their parents arms.  But did the bees deter people from ordering their cool treats? Not at all.  They forged through the swarm, pausing to read every single flavor to their kids, and insisting that they get more than one flavor when all their child really wanted was, "a Red one."  It takes a certain kind of person to expect a squirming and sweaty snow cone truck driver to serve them sugar-filled shaved ice through this bee-filled hell on earth.  

The breaking point was reached on a Saturday morning when Richard was working the youth soccer league at, "Silver Creek," or, "Cypress Landing," or whatever the stupid name of the newly developed Texas suburban neighborhood was.  He had just served a small cactus juice snow cone to a golden-haired little boy when one of the hundreds of swarming bees landed right on top of it.  The young lad shrieked and waddled over to his parents dropping the snow cone on the ground in a heap, which was instantly covered with bees. 

That was it.

Richard decided it was either him, or the bees.  He turned on the truck and parked it in a different sector of the parking lot, away from the sugary pile of cactus juice ice.  He fashioned a whacking stick and shield out of cardboard and tape, and prepared for the final battle...

He slid the serving window wide open and allowed the buzzing hoard to enter his domain.  After they were inside slurping syrup, Richard shut the window and watched.  He waited for them to drink their fill,  he watched as their bodies turned the color of the syrup that they chose, they were drunk and clumsy and the only way out of the truck was smashed on a cardboard shield (he quickly discovered that the whacking stick was wildly ineffective due to its small surface area).  Only after he laid waste to each wave of bees would he re-open the serving window to attend to the customers.  Bored kids that were dragged to their siblings' games looked on and cheered as the battle raged.  By the time the soccer games were over and Richard's obligation to sling cone was done, he had killed hundreds of bees.  It's been said that on quiet nights, he can still hear their sickening buzz.

And, whenever he had time he drew 'toons...     

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Write-in Submission

by: CR

For years, Ms. Colonita had been thinking of Mr. Toilet as the villain (for the record, I do not presume to judge the veracity of her perspective). The reason for this perception was that whenever she would deliver her packages to his place of business (he was a middle man working for the city government), John would throw water at her in proportion to the size of the package delivered.

Given that Urina was compelled to deliver the packages not of her own volition (she was delivering ‘packages to nowhere’...just one of many manifestations of the government’s attempts to jolt the economy back into it’s pre-recession form), she grew increasingly upset with John at what seemed to be his knee-jerk reaction to package delivery, thinking to herself, “How unfair for him to splash the messenger”.

Over the years, she had begun to plot her revenge. She decided on a plan that would involve delivering as large a package as she could manage, hoping to clog up John’s operations (friends recall her mumbling under her breath, “I’m going to murder Mr. Toilet”). The day had finally arrived...she was poised...she made the delivery and sure enough the package did it’s job, shutting down his business for a week.

Feeling vindicated, she “celebrated” by taking some much needed R&R, telling herself that she deserved the break, when in reality she had no choice but to relax, as she had cleared out her warehouse of its supplies and would have to wait for restocking to occur before resuming her work anyway.  

As it turns out, the package almost crushed John, requiring resetting of broken bones, stitches, IVs and many other intervention techniques to save his life. As is often the case in these situations, Ms. Colonita was caught by the county police and charged with attempted murder. While sitting in prison awaiting her trial, Ms. Colonita started throwing up blood. She was rushed to the doctor’s and was diagnosed as having ruptured her lungs, attributable only to the extraordinary exertion undertaken during her revenge.

Long story short, she died in the hospital, asking her family to remember her for the war she waged against incivility.

After the trial was dismissed, Mr. Toilet was allowed to appear on many morning news shows to tell his side of the story (up until then he had, on the counsel of his counsel, been asked to remain out of the media spotlight). In response to the question: “If you could speak to her now, what would you say to Ms. Colonita?” he replied, “I would say to her that I wished she would have taken my perspective, as I, much like everyone else, am just a messenger. The water was nothing more than an unfortunate but necessary manifestation of the first law of thermodynamics”.

The journalist closed by pondering, in a manner that many later remarked had lacked the appropriate level of sensitivity toward Urina and her family...“In the end, it seems that the old adage, ‘assumptions make an ass out of you and me’  stands intact. Indeed, who’s the ass now?”

-CR