It was summer and both bees and wasps and other life threatening monsters had invaded the gardens of Larsensgade. Didde wasn´t at all happy with these creepy things crawling and flying around in her garden and she had decided that this year they had to be wiped out! Every single one of them!
She had bought some insecticide in spray cans and had been all the way around her house terminating creeps of all sorts in all the places she could think of and was now on a damage assessment mission. She squeezed her eyes tightly together. Take that! Creeps!
"Oh!" she yelled startled as she stepped down in a hole in the lawn. What was this? It hadn´t been there yesterday, she was sure of it. Using all of her strength she lifted up her foot from the hole and then her eyes widened! A swarm of wasps follow right on the tail of her foot heel from the darkness of Mother Earth and a couple of dozen sat on her rubber boots trying to find somewhere to crawl inside as she tried keeping track of every single one of them.
"Jens! Com out here, right now!" she heard herself panicking and soon a middle aged man with the residue of his last few hairs combed over the top of his head rushed out of the house as a knight in shining armor to rescue his young maiden. Well, not really young.. or maiden...
"What is it, my love?"
She pointed her finger at her boots, where the insects seemed to have only one goal. Revenge on their brethren! At least in her eyes they were on a mission to sting her to death.
"Help me," she pleaded, "Help me, Jens, please..."
With resolution Jens fetched a hand broom and brushed the wasps off of the boots. "Better get you inside and look at the damage," he smiled, ”for all we know, you might have internal bleedings.”
In the kitchen he searched her feet for covert ops groups of wasps just waiting for the defcon to go down, but found none. "Lucky you. It looks all right," Jens said, ”let´s have a cup of coffee and then I think it´s time to mind the potatoes."
Didde looked at him with her chin on her chest. How could he even begin to think about his potatoes so soon after she had almost been scared to death?
"Potatoes?" she sneered, "There will be no minding potatoes or any other sort of vegetable right now. Those creeps gotta go and they gotta go now!"
"But Didde, there´s no more poison." He stood with his back to her and was pouring up some coffee. "Well, then you have to go get some, Jens Hansen." Didde was very determined and at the tone of her voice and even more at the use of his surname Jens knew there was no way around the matter. But there was still a problem.
"But, Didde, it´s Sunday," he tried, "all shops are closed."
"I don´t care, Jens. Get some! Find a solution!"
He swung his arms in surrender. "Yeah… but how?"
"Well, for one thing one of the neighbors might have some ant poison or something."
Jens placed his mug at the table and went to their neighbor’s house.
"Hi, Anders," he said over the low hedges separating the two properties, "ehm... I don´t suppose you eh.. have some insecticide of some sort? Like ant poison?"
Anders leaned lazily against his rake and shook his head. "Sorry, no," he said, "has Didde been attacked by ants? They really are nasty creatures, you know. One moment you´re sleeping quietly in your bed and the next you wake up at the sound of those buggers ramming in the door and raping all the women in the house." Not a single muscle in his head even twitched. So typical with Anders and his wry and dry humor.
Jens laughed loudly enough to connect with Anders, but not so loud that Didde could hear it. Well, he supposed she was a bit hysterical when it came to insects. But what won´t one do to secure peace in one´s own house?
Anders tilted his head. "What´s the problem, Jens?" he asked, still holding both hands firmly on the rake without moving an inch.
"She stepped into a wasps nest on our lawn."
Anders nodded in understanding. "I think, I know what to do, Wait here" he said and went to his garage. Jens heard him rattling around in there and soon after he came out with a weed burner.
"Get this to the nest. I´ll be there in a moment. Just gotta get something else."
Inside the house Didde was recuperating after the chocking experience. She had taken a bath to be absolutely sure there were no more wasps crawling around on her body og now she was sitting in the kitchen drinking the coffee, Jens had left her. Through the kitchen window she saw Jens walking from Anders´ house with something in his hands and following him was Anders with a Jerry Can and started pouring gasoline on the lawn. What in the world? What are they doing?
"What IS going on here?" she asked while holding the bath robe tight. Although she wasn´t exactly a school girl anymore, she was still a modest woman and having nothing underneath the robe, she wanted to be sure that nothing could be seen.
"Now, if you could grab the Jerry and pour some more in this end of the nest, we can be more sure that it´ll burn," Anders instructed, "otherwise we risk it vaporizing before we can set it on fire."
Realizing they had a visitor, Anders looked up and saw Didde. "Perhaps you shouldn´t stand so close," he told her. Who does he think he is? She thought to herself. She never really liked Anders. Always the know-it-all and always telling other people what to do and what not to do.
Jens and Anders were both deeply concentrated on their endeavor. Anders standing ready with the weed burner just waited for Jens to spill the last drops of the flammable liquid and as soon as he had finished, Anders made his move in a quick jerk and pulled the trigger on the weed burner.
WRUUUF! The fire roared through the underground tunnel of the wasps nest and jumped high in the air at the other side, where Didde was standing.
"Aaaaargh!" she screamed and started jumping up and down on the lawn waving her arms in an attempt to extinguish the fire on the edge of her robe. She wasn´t very successful. Then she started running towards the house with a picture of the bath tub in her head. Luckily Anders was both clear headed and quick. Dropping the weed burner on the ground he ran as fast as he could to get her. In no time at all, he caught up with her and set off as a tiger jumping at its prey and tackled her like a football pro.
They trickled round on the grass and within a few seconds the fire was gone.
Anders was the first to get to his feet and stretched out his hand to aid her. Grudgingly she grabbed his hand while trying to hold the remainders of the burned robe tight with her other hand. Anders lifted an eyebrow for just a split second and then turned his face to look away.
A little later they all sat in Didde and Jens´ kitchen drinking coffee. Didde had changed into something more decent after first searching her skin for damage. Except for a burning sensation between her legs she was actually better than she had thought. Just had to be a little careful getting dressed.
"Thanks, Anders," she finally got out, " He nodded and smiled. Smiled and nodded. But he didn´t say anything, although she was sure, he was thinking something in that arrogant head of his. The silence was unbearable and since she had a feeling, she didn´t want to know what Anders was thinking, she decided on another approach to break the silence.
"So,” she said, ”are all the wasps gone?" "Yep," Jens answered and Anders nodded. "You can be certain, that there are no bugs in your lawn,” Anders assured her, ”That method works like a charm. Takes everything. Even crab lice!"
