There was a Bee*

Saturday morning I was driving in my car down I-95 and my windows were rolled up, so when something flew towards my face I freaked a little...I may or may not have closed my eyes for split second as I swatted the unidentified entity in an attempt to protect my face from whatever it might be. More importantly my eyes and mouth because gag me should whatever is floating around in my car hit my eye or enter my mouth.

After reopening my eyes to see nothing I began to think that maybe I overreacted. That is until I took my exit off of the interstate and as I turned to look out the left side to make sure everything was okay, I saw this little guy. Well, not this little guy. Had I had my wits about me and my camera in the front seat rather than the back I would have taken a picture, but as was, I was camera-less...and witless to be quite honest. Bees aren't exactly my insect of choice to have in my car when driving at 45+ mph. He was crawling up the window, and then would fall back to the little ledge, and then try to crawl back up. He was probably freaking out as much as I was. There he was, minding his own business Saturday morning flying around my house and I have the nerve to open the car door and take him miles away from home. Miles to a bee can mean spending a lifetime alone, hive-less, like getting stranded in a foreign country. Then, he sees the outside, but can't get to it. He thinks he is making progress but the window is too steep. He probably feared he would die there, so close and yet so far away from the outside, from freedom, like a fly in an Emily Dickinson poem.

I couldn't very well focus on my driving now that I was aware that a bee (whom we shall call Marvin from this point on) was inches from flinging himself to the right, and sticking his stinger in my arm. However, I had compassion on him as he continued to try and climb up the window, and continued to fail. So I slowly started to move the window down. I didn't want to crush Marvin's legs so I would inch the window down when he was high enough. Sometimes he fell because the window was moved down, sometimes because it's what he had been doing. But soon the window was low enough that he was able to secure his little feet around the edge of the window. Let me tell you, little Marvin held on for dear life. I had not thought it possible for a bee to latch on to something the way that little Marvin was holding on to this window, but turns out it is possible, and a little endearing. Kind of reminded me of Benny**, made me miss him a little.

I almost felt bad flicking Marvin out the rest of the way with a piece of paper, almost. At the same time though I was relieved when the paper smacked his butt and he flew off into the city streets. Be free Marvin....be free.

*Ever After

**M.C. do you remember? The hitchhiking little bug that we kept in the yogurt cup and watched him dance from side to side (thus the name Benny for Benny and the Jets)? He rode with us from Michigan to Illinois, where we let him out to hitchhike with other travelers.