Death by Hornet Sting

• By ebotpandayan
• Posted in Uncategorized
• On April 26, 2026
• 2 Comments.

I survived the night. I’m still alive! Tossing in bed, though, before I finally passed out, restless, however. My butt, the left cheek to be precise, hurts from a hornet sting. That was 3 or so hours after, and I was still hurting despite getting first aid to avoid further complications. At home, I sat down at the computer to put in writing that awful moment in my life that I had that day, but it wasn’t easy. I could not sit down for long, so I went to bed, but the pain was getting intense, so I got up, turned on the computer again, and googled ways to alleviate the pain. Hornets do not usually leave their stingers behind, but knowing how to act quickly can prevent worse reactions, and I got this advice:

“For a hornet sting, immediately move to safety, wash the area with soap and water, and apply a cold compress for 10–20 minutes to reduce swelling. Remove any stingers by gently scraping with a credit card…Take antihistamines…”

I didn’t want to ruin my credit card, and I have no antihistamines in stock that would get rid of itching and pain. The only option left was a cold compress. I don’t have a cold compress either, but I do have this insulated wine-cooler sleeve in my freezer. It can do the job, or so I thought.It alleviated the pain until I got rid of it because sleeping wasn’t easy with the wine-cooler sleeve plastered on my butt, which keeps shifting every time I change positions.

Drat that hornet!

It was hovering over my head and face while I lay on a garden folding bed in our garden house in Vienna, trying to enjoy the first warm, sunny day and the almost-spring-like feeling, a respite from the nasty, cold April days. The temperature soared to 24 °C. Almost everyone I saw was in their summer outfits — shirts and shorts. I took off my blue jeans, changed into shorts and a shirt, and lay down under the trees. Soon after, a solitary hornet buzzed, determined to disturb my peace despite my efforts to shoo it away. A fly swat made it disappear, only to reappear when Richard and Renate — two Viennese friends — dropped by to help Walter solve his problems with his new TV set. Mission not accomplished, though. Walter needs a professional technician.

“I was grocery shopping and found this olive bread with feta cheese, also a bottle of Spanish olive oil,” I bragged. Richard spends a lot of time in Spain, so I thought he could tell if I made a good choice getting this olive oil. “There was this Spanish olive oil you can get from another supermarket in Vienna, and it tastes excellent,” he said. The oil I got tasted bland, so he suggested adding a bit of salt and thyme to improve it. It went well with our glass of white. We were chatting animatedly, enjoying the wine and the olive-feta bread dipped into the not-so-OK olive oil, when the annoying hornet flew over our heads twice and then flew away after Richard waved it off.

It started to get chilly after the sun went down, so I decided to put on my jeans again. Putting it on, I heard the buzzing sound of the hornet, thinking it was coming from somewhere, until it stung me in my butt. It was hiding in my jeans! I screamed in pain and hastily took off my pants. I saw the pest come out of my trousers before I could even get out of them.

Walter was alarmed by my scream, stopped what he was doing, and rushed into the wardrobe. Renate and Richard were in unison, asking what had happened.

“I was stung by a hornet, and it hurts so much,” I said while trying to feel with my hand the spot where I was stung. It took only seconds for the area to swell. I lowered my shorts to show my butt and get confirmation from Walter and Richard on how bad the sting had been. Renate. who lives in the same garden community, rushed home to apparently get this insect-repelling device, specifically against wasps and hornets. It has a contact surface that heats for a few seconds and is held directly against the sting. You can feel the heat, a burning sensation like when you touch a hot pressing iron, I know, having had it applied to me last year when a wasp stung me in my face. The rationale was to offset the poison the bite may bring.

Renate was soon back and explained to Richard how the instrument works. Richard could not get it right, so Renated had to take it over. They were frantically discussing how to do it while I was there on all fours on the dining table bench, my butt exposed for some time. I screamed in anticipation of the hot flash touching my skin. “I have yet to apply it to your skin,” Renate said, laughing. I didn’t feel it when she did, because it didn’t flash. It so happened that she brought two of the same instruments and tried the other after replacing the batteries. It made me more anxious and scared. It worked this time.

I didn’t know that Richard took a shot of my exposed butt. Despite my pain, I cracked up when I saw the photo. It was like a scene from a porn film, me there on all fours on a bench, butt exposed, while Renate was poking my behind with what resembled a vibrator. I sent a copy to two of my best friends, one found it hysterical, and asked what happened. Shooting a hard-core porn movie, I replied. I have yet to hear from her again.
I wanted to add that if the hornet stung me in my penis, it could be a sensation, making my tiny mole grow massive, I could give porn stars a stiff competition — no pun intended, but wishful thinking!

“You’re doing Ok,” Richard and Renate said in unison when I developed no allergic reaction to the sting. The pain lingers, though, but that was normal, they said. It will eventually subside.

A neighbor in the garden was taking a shower, Walter heard, when a hornet stung the tip of his nose. He had allergic reactions, collapsed, and was in a coma for three days in the hospital, where he died, a reminder that severe reactions like his can be fatal without quick action and awareness of allergy symptoms.

I wondered, though, why the hornet was in my trousers. “The hornet is searching for a place where it can build a nest,” Walter told us. Indeed, his garden house swarmed with wasps and hornets in summer. “And your trousers are warm and woolly. Hornets love them,” added Renate to the hypothesis.

Now I understand why Teresita, another friend, was scared of wasps and could not sit still whenever she came to visit us in the garden, especially when the grapes hanging over the dining table were ripe for the picking, when wasps and hornets were having a field day. She has an allergy to insect stings, especially those from wasps and hornets.

My hornet-sting encounter that day made me conscious of checking clothes and shoes before wearing them, highlighting the need for safety measures to prevent surprises and protect others, especially those with allergies.
This sudden consciousness of checking out my clothes and shoes for hidden surprises, before wearing them, brought back to mind that one hot summer day back home when a cousin, doing house chores, put on a buri hat before she went outdoors, not realizing that a snake suddenly appeared dangling from her hat, until someone noticed and screamed.