Writers Workshop

She burst through the front door like a freight train on a clear track. He jumped out of his chair with a questioning look. She just smiled at him and said, “I have to get my Windex, Todd’s in the car!”

“Who is Todd?” he asked with just a hint of jealously.

“The yellow jacket from last night!” With that she blew back out the door. He just laughed. Last night when she returned from picking up the pizza, she asked him to remind her that there was a yellow jacket in the car that wouldn’t fly out.

This morning she rushed off to her exercise class, forgetting all about the deadly beast that lay in wait. The evil, stinging monster who took up residence in her vehicle over night. She never gave it a thought this morning. She didn’t see him when she left for class. And now, there he was, wedged in where the windshield met the dash. He didn’t move when she first got in the car. She hoped he died there, but doubted it. A cool spring evening followed by a slightly warmer spring morning meant that Todd was a little out of it, but lethal just the same. As she drove home, the yellow jacket turned to face her. They looked into each other’s eyes. She tried to contain her fear, imagining Todd going ballistic and attacking her mercilessly while she drove through the quiet neighborhood. She envisioned what others would see and repeat to the police when they came to take her away for reckless driving. “She was a mad woman, yelling and swinging her arms around. She swerved from one side of the street to the other before jumping right out of that moving car!”

She was making plans for old Todd. Yup, if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave after she opens her door to get out. At home in her driveway, that is. Not while driving down the street. She plotted his demise while he stared her down. He was actually facing her, looking at her with those calculating, beady, black eyes. She began to feel guilty. He’s looking at her, she even named him. And all the while, she was the one planning a quick ending to him. “Just keep staring, Todd. Don’t even make a move.” Todd shifted to get a better look at her as she pulled into the driveway.

In full-on guilt mode, she opened all the windows and said, “If you know what’s good for you, you better leave.” That’s when she went into the house to choose her weapon, window cleaner. When she returned to the car, Todd was still there. She sprayed him once, twice and a third time for good measure. He wiggled around. She ran back into the house. An hour later, when leaving for work, she looked for Todd. He should have been dead in the window. He was gone. Part of her hoped that he flew out, finally. Nice and clean, but gone all the same. This is distinctly possible. Earlier, she grabbed Cinch, a far superior product for cleaning windows but sadly lacking in the bug killer department. For that you need real Windex. Windex would have done the job in seconds flat. Perhaps it was a psychological slip. Maybe she did it on purpose. After all, how do you kill something you named? Whatever the reason, she was glad he wasn’t belly up on the dashboard. She didn’t know if she was a lean, mean bug killing machine or just some nut case who names then washes yellow jackets and worries about them. She smirked to herself as she typed this story. That’s right, don’t mess with me; I’ll bathe you. Silly Todd, silly me.