Respect Has Been Paid
You may have read that I’ve been recently unemployed. No more. Yay. Updates follow, because asshattery has ensued. However, this rule applies: money in = increased patience with shenanigans.
What I’m ranting about now is my time off between hires (unpaid, by the way). I had one full unpaid week of absolutely unpaid nothing to do other than what the tiny lady I’m married to asked me to do, unpaid, which wasn’t much. What I’m assed about is, of seven straight days of being close to living in a van down by the river, IT RAINED FOR FIVE OF THEM. Fuck.
I love me some yardwork time, and when the Unemployment God dickslaps you with his awesome unpaid munificence, you take advantage of that time. Unless, of course, it is fucking raining and you cannot do yardwork that needs done. Fuckers.
All that said, you can do math (hopefully) and realized that I did get two days of awesome. I got a lot done, and in that time, there’s of course a story. I’ll preface it with the reference to my two-weekend, wasp-sting experience where I “discovered” a yellow jacket ground nest while pulling out some ivy from my back yard. Ouch.
Flash forward to now. Below, you’ll see the shittastic little corner of my yard where there once was a verdant bed of uncontrollable English ivy bent on world domination. By the way, all English ivy is bent on world domination. The Brits once tried to dominate the world, and therefore their evil fucking ivy now does the same.

Wasp Graveyard… Near the leaf, directly below the new shrub… die, you evil-stinging, eye-closing motherfuckers
I’ll point out the grayish smudge of dirty shit across the photo. That is the remnant of burnt shit. Why? Because yours truly exacted epic, Biblical-scale fire-death upon the wasps. They died in their nest, struggling to escape, while accelerant-fueled flames licked at their multifaceted fucking eyes and immolated their queen. Score: Rants – 2, Wasps – 2, series ended.
Of course, as I returned to the ivy I’d abandoned due to the death-stinger asshole insects, guess what happened? No, I did not have dinner with Stephen King or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Dammit. What did happen was, three wasps returned as I was raking the shit smooth once the ivy had been ripped brutally from the ground. They swooped in, sniffed me, and hovered.
At this point, I’ve learned to fucking pay attention to black-and-yellow goddamn bugs in the air. However, they circled, then moved in and out, and left. It felt like a message to me, possibly saying: “You were a worthy adversary, Rants. Respect. We will now separate, not in peace but in mutual standoff.”
Fucking fine by me, you little pissflaps. A year and a half from now, your former nest will be coated over with a verdant blanket of grass. Dickwads. However, my adventure wasn’t over. As I was peeling off my work boots (old combat boots, of fucking course), I spotted this:

What the actual fuck??
Curious, I had to inspect it. The area closest to the house I’ve managed to coat with a generous and deep layer of self-made topsoil. This looked like a mushroom at first glance. Upon closer inspection, I found this:

Great. I’m a Southern town.
Fucking great. I have a miniature fucking water tower. Either the worms are worshipping me, or the alien invasion has started, and I’m the capitol city. Welcome to my life.
October 8, 2016 at 17:58
You made me laugh for the first time in my despondent, first bloody snowfall, unemployed day. Thank you.
October 8, 2016 at 19:47
Snow?? Jesus H, I am sorry for you living wherever you live.
October 8, 2016 at 22:22
Canada….
October 9, 2016 at 07:58
Sorry. That sucks.
October 9, 2016 at 15:43
You can see a picture of it from my balcony in my latest post. Ugghhhh.
October 9, 2016 at 17:56
That just sucks.
October 8, 2016 at 18:06
As long as the alien invaders swear fealty to the Awesome Ranty One, I think it’ll be okay for you to let them stay. Otherwise, you can treat them like you do the wasps. :flame:
October 8, 2016 at 19:49
True. I guess my name on a water tower constitutes fealty.
October 8, 2016 at 18:14
Pissflaps…. Haha haha
October 8, 2016 at 19:51
Yes… a favorite term, I’ve found.
October 8, 2016 at 19:35
You are soooo funny!
October 8, 2016 at 19:51
Thanks! I’m soooo grateful!
October 8, 2016 at 20:03
I don’t know how I feel about this…I mean, imagine what your ginormous self must look like to a wasp.
October 8, 2016 at 20:16
Yeah, I’m thinking I looked like a pincushion to the little fucker.
October 8, 2016 at 22:24
That’s a great answer, Rants! Keep up the good work!
October 9, 2016 at 07:57
Thanks!
October 9, 2016 at 06:28
Can’t believe you destroyed my ivy. I was just about to retake-over the world…
October 9, 2016 at 07:57
It was necessary. I turned it into excellent mulch, though.
October 9, 2016 at 19:29
Might be the same stuff, but we have “foot-a-night Morning Glory”, as my mom referred to it – yes, with the true (and verified by me) ability to grow at least a foot every night. Mind you, I tried to nurture some to hold together a small hillside that is trying to crumble. I even transplanted some. And it all died. If you ever need to know what God’s gonna do next, ask me what I’m trying to do, then bet on the diametric opposite. You’ll win every time.
And coincidence of coincidences, I’m sitting here nursing a wasp sting on my left arm. How did I get it? Burying a hive of tunneling bees. Thousands, tens of thousands, MILLIONS of friggin’ bees, and a rogue wasp got me. I think you and I need to sit down and figure out an Extinction Level Event just for those little wasp bastards. You bring the napalm, I’ll figure out the delivery system. Now to figure out a turret mounting on my station wagon …. 😉
Oh, by the by, I figured you’d like the name Rantsville, so that’s what I ordered from the little orange guys (dwarf cousins of little green men). If you want something different, let me know, but hurry, ’cause the warranty expires in a few days. 😀
October 10, 2016 at 05:42
The wasp napalm has to be delivered at night, when they ‘sleep.’ Or whatever the little fuckers do.
October 10, 2016 at 14:34
I’d say to wait until it turns cold, but with the weather we’ve had lately, I’m afraid that won’t happen for a while. Like, until the sun burns out, or when “Day After Tomorrow” gets the scientific errors worked out. You know …. kind of a long wait, say a billion years or so….
October 10, 2016 at 19:18
Whatever. I firebombed, napalmed and sowed the earth with salt on their fucking nest. Biblical shit, yo.
October 10, 2016 at 02:15
Yay for return to employment….but I’m interested in this wife who asks you to do chores, and where I might get one. 😉 😯
October 10, 2016 at 05:43
Well, I do consider myself the luckiest man on the planet, wasps and rain considered, just because of her.
October 10, 2016 at 14:32
So you mean you don’t think you’re lucky ’cause you know ME?!? Harrumph! HARRUMPH to you, sir!
October 10, 2016 at 19:17
No, but if you knew my Little One you’d completely understand what I meant.
October 13, 2016 at 01:35
Sounds suspiciously like my wife, for whom I’d breaststroke naked through a tank of shattered glass if she needed me to – out of both deep unabiding love and an honest-to-God mortal fear of her wrath! 😀
By the by, way way WAY off topic. Any idea why the A-1 Skyraider was always called “Sandy” when supporting helos in ‘Nam? Nothing urgent, just my usual rabid curiosity.
October 14, 2016 at 11:10
No idea.
October 15, 2016 at 03:12
Really? I figured you’d know, having been there as what, the third war of the 20th century section of your career? (You DID serve with Caesar in Gaul, right? Or am I thinking of a different Rants? Oh, wait, that’s right, you served at Hastings in 1066, not Gaul in Roman times. My bad. 😉 😀 )
October 15, 2016 at 08:11
Yeah. I had to help out Billy the Conqueror so that I could continue to swear in English for all time. I hate learning new languages.
October 15, 2016 at 14:16
“Schiesskopf” and “Fick dich”. Two freebies from German, the best language to curse in while angry. If you want Spanish, lemme know and I’ll dig up my old phrasebook from High School. Two years of learning to speak Spanish, and I’ve got left is a bunch of cursing. Great use of my time!.
October 16, 2016 at 06:53
After being all over the world, I also swear in a smorgasbord of languages.
October 29, 2016 at 13:49
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October 29, 2016 at 22:37
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